Sewing Success – Graduation Dress

Ok. So that grey dress was awful. But the dress/outfit that happened in the end was a super success and I am so happy the grey dress was a terrible mistake.

I had a pattern for a t-shirt type top that has a lot of sleeve variations. It is McCall’s 7542.

Maggie loves a dramatic sleeve. Because of her shape she can sometimes be hard to fit with certain styles and so separates or a dress with an open hip is easier. She also is very short waisted and so everything needs to be altered in the length more than seems possible. LOL

So, I showed her this pattern and said I could make a top and a skirt that would overlap a bit at the waist and look similar to a dress but then she could also wear the pieces separately at school. She jumped at it.

I had this pretty light blue plaid stretch cotton that had been laying around for years and I was just looking for the right outfit for it.

The top is cropped in the pattern but I still had to take another 3 inches off to get it to hit right at the top of her hip.

I used bias tape to finish the hems on the skirt, top and sleeves. It was particularly important to have a nice looking finish on the sleeves since it is often visible.

In the end she wore it for her final recital with Mikat Music Studios It’s her final recital with them since she’ll be headed to college and a new voice teacher in just a couple of months. And it looked great with her graduation cap and gown.