New work dress- M6886

Knit work dress

So I love this pattern. Not my first time to make it but certainly a better fit this time around.

McCall’s 6886- I opted for View C with 3/4 length sleeves, temps are dropping around here and I’ll be able to wear this through the winter. Used a medium weight knit purchased from Fabric Mart during one of their blow out knit sales (love those!!) I remember thinking I’d like to make a work dress out of it (last year) and so the fabric has been stored. Last weekend I reorganized all my fabric and found it again! I love the geometric design and I wear a lot of black and white to work. It’s a soft ponte knit so it feels like secret pajamas (bonus!)

I made a dress from this pattern a few years ago and it was a bit snug, also the print made me feel a bit self conscious, it was a big black and white houndstooth. Don’t know why, it just did.

Couldn’t remember why it was snug so decided to use 1/4″ seams. I decided to cut the back singly and have a center back seam rather than the fold, don’t ask me why. Glad I did because when I sewed it up using 1/4″ seams, it was way too big. I had a lot of fabric pooling at my lower back, adjusted by taking out about 1″ at waist and tapering to nothing about 2 -3′ from the neck. I also took it in about 1/2″ around the underarms/bust area, it was too loose. I made the size 14, I could probably have done size 12 for the top and graded out to 14 for the lower half. You just never know with patterns and I didn’t feel like making a muslin. I’m lazy like that…

Back View

The neckline ( love the neckline), sleeves and hem are all turned and stitched using a double needle- I serged the edge first for a neater look and also easier to fold. I’ve tried folding singly without the serged edge and I ended up with burned fingertips. No bueno.