Thoughts on Spring Sewing and a Question

I realize that most sewists in the northern hemisphere are focused on cold weather sewing right now.  For some odd reason my mind had an image of this fabric from my stash pop up (and it wasn't wrinkled when I thought of it, but I guess that's what stashing in an antique trunk does):

  My sincere apologies for the way this thing photographed!  It is a bright pink pique with white daisies embroidered on it.  I originally bought it to make youngest dd a dress, but realized that I bought a lot.  Mother/daughter dresses???

For dd:

I just recently made this pattern into a Christmas dress for her.  Super quick and easy.  I think the short sleeved version with a white ribbon at the bodice and skirt seam would work for this pique.

For me there are 2 choices:

Butterick 5455, a Maggy London dress, that lists pique as a suggested fabric!  View A with white piping?  Or just plain as in View B?

I made this dress last summer.  It's McCall 6123 and all altered and ready to be used.

But should I?  Would this pique look terrible made up for an adult?  Any thoughts would be appreciated!

McCall's 6123 Completed!

I am way behind in posting, but since it's mostly due to sewing that's a good thing!  Here's the McCall 6123 made in quilting cottons:

I love it!  It's a little brighter than I normally wear, but it's very cool and light feeling.  Here are the alterations I made:

-added 5/8" to CF bodice as a full bust adjustment
-darts in the back bodice pieces in the waist since there was way too much fabric
-forward should adjustment

I think that's it on fit adjustments.  They were pretty easy and now I am finally feeling like I know what I need to do to make a pattern fit me.  Having said that, there was still room to take in the side seams, either a lot or a little depending on the wearing ease I wanted, particularly right under the arms.  I've left it as is for the present because I don't want a form fitting dress for the hot summer!  I might go back later and take in the side seam under the arm because that is big which you can see a little in the picture.

Other pattern changes:

-contrast strips sewn on differently
-bottom small floral for the back was cut as one piece, rather than with a center seam
-used flat construction rather than in the round
-fully lined in cotton batiste

For the contrast strips, the pattern direction you to press up 3/8" on one long side, then sew the other unfinished long side into the seam, topstitch and edgestitch.  I hate measuring such long strips and burning my fingers while pressing them up.  I'm not too keen on all that topstitching and edgestitching either, so I changed that part.  Instead I checked the finished width on the contrast, doubled it, and added seam allowances and cut them out.  Then I folded narrow sides in half, pressed them and stitched the raw edges directly into the seams, leaving the folded edge free like this:

I'm using the stick to hold up the folded edge here so you can see that it's not stitched down.  Doubling the contrast adds a little more bulk to the seams, but I serged them all and they seem fine.  Plus the trade off in a little bulk versus all that measuring, pressing and topstitching was worth it!  I did topstitch above the contrast to anchor the serged seam which I'm not sure you can see well in the picture.
Now, for a little surprise!  So my heirloom sewing skills wouldn't get rusty, I added this to the bottom of the lining:

It's a Swiss embroidery with entredeux on either side, attached on one side to the cotton batiste and to some French cotton lace on the other.  Kinda fun and like a pretty slip underneath, isn't it? 

I am very pleased w/ the dress--no hemming, either on the dress itself (the green contrast took care of that) or the lining (the mini fancy band).  I've always dreaded zippers but had to install an invisible zipper for the first time last year.  It wasn't as bad as I thought and now I think I love them!  The internet really helps a lot!  I looked up invisible zippers and am so grateful for the tutorials I've found in various places.  I even got the back of this dress all matched up at the waist, using a technique I read about in a fairly recent Threads magazine issue:

And if you'll look below the waist, you'll see that I matched the pattern of the center back seam of the large floral all the way down to the small floral band at the bottom!  The small floral band at the bottom was cut as one piece, rather than two.  Not sure why now, but it made sense when I did it.

I have more projects to show, but that will have to wait until another time!

McCall's 6123

While I'm waiting for the fabric for Simplicity 2497, I decided to go on and start McCall's 6123.  I already had the fashion fabric for it:

Pardon the wrinkles, that's the next step!  The picture doesn't have the colors quite right either.  These are quilting cottons from one of our local quilt shops, about the only fabric shopping left in my area besides Joann's.  I'm making View D, the dress in the center right.  Here's the pattern:

I decided to tissue fit this one.  Pretty straightforward adjustments:  adding 1/2" to the center front when it's cut on the fold rather than a FBA (per the pattern since the center is gathered), a dart in each side of the back bodice at the waist (there was a ton of fabric back there!), and a slight straightening of the CB curve in the bodice.  That last was causing the neckline to gap slightly away from the back of my neck and since I don't usually need a high round back adjustment, this should work.  That center back seam was really curved.  I didn't need a forward shoulder adjustment though according to the tissue fit and once I basted the seams and tried it on, yes, I did need that.  So, I'll try and adjust that as much as possible w/ the seam allowance I have.  In any event, it will fit a lot better than RTW!  Adding that extra 1/2" to the CF and with all those gathers looks like an extra boob...I'm hoping the weight of the skirt plus lining the bodice will help that since it's certainly very undesirable!