The Green Dress McCalls 6116

     The Pattern says on the front cover "The Perfect Shirtdress". I agree. This dress makes me happy in so many ways. Let's start with the sleeves. I detest long sleeves and if I wear them I push or roll them up. I detest short short sleeves. They do nothing for my vertically challenged figure and don't hide enough. These rolled and tabbed elbow length sleeves are perfect. . They cover my arms just the way I like, hiding the floobies and showing off my better lower arm.
     Next are all the verticals, the V-neck cut at just the right "low-ness". No decollete here, a very frequent problem again due to my height. Then there are all the princess seams, more verticality.  Another vertical is the buttons all the way down the front. And they don't split open when it sit, Hooray! Also having some length is the collar which extends partway down into the V.
     Now we get to the waistline. The wide sash shows off probably the last thing this grandma doesn't have to be engineered into. Love a good bra, but I don't think I could handle spanx and thanks to genetics haven't had to yet. I wasn't sure about the sash  but once on I liked it. Looks better with than without.
     And last but not least, the COLOR! What is it about wearing color that just makes you feel so good? I will definitely get more color in my life. I've never thought of green as a color that "works" for me but I wanted to get out of the box color wise and this did the trick. Love it.

Here is a closer shot of the details. They do tend to get lost in the print in the photos  but still add some panache to the dress and were worth the effort.

                 
Now for some construction details.  The pattern does not call for a lining. This is completely underlined with some anti static lining except for the sleeves. The linen edges  were all serged to the lining prior to construction. For the sleeves pattern instructions have you do a 1/4 inch hem and roll up the sleeves.Then you bring the tab from underneath and button it to hold in the "roll-up". Na, na, no! That means you see the wrong side of the fabric and that won't do. What I did was serge the bottom edge of the sleeve. Then I folded it to the inside  about 2 1/2 inches. I now stitched on the serged edge to hem the sleeve. The sleeve was then able to be rolled up with the right side showing instead of the wrong and the machine hem is hidden in the rolls.

  
For the fit I did a muslin, something I am now addicted to and highly recommend. Your wadder count will decrease tremendously if you start doing muslins, promise. I cut an 8 above the waist and a 12 below.

• Removed 1/2 inch between shoulder seam and princess seam in armhole. 
• Scooped out the back of the armseye from the notch to the side seam about 1/4 inch. I have been doing this for years to take out some of the fullness happening in the upper torso. 
• Did a swayback adjustment about an inch and a half above the back waist, removing a healthy 1 and 3/4 inches at center back and tapering to nothing at the side seam.
• Removed a 1/2 inch across the top center back piece. 
• Cut the armhole a half inch lower to accommodate removing the length in the bodice. 
• Interfaced the sash with a fusible tricot, mostly to prevent show-through but also to give the sash just a little extra oomph. 

This is a now a tried and true pattern for me, a great princess seamed dress. I've been thinking and a new goal of mine is to search out some more tried and true garments. I have Carolyn envy. In the meantime, unlike the pattern envelope, I will call this the  "The Perfect Shirtdress for Petites"....Bunny