Green Retro Dress

My DD1 announced that she needed a semi-formal dress for her friend's 16th birthday event.

I had this pattern, McCall's 6462, for a while and I immediately thought this dress would fit the occasion. I had a perfect fabric in my stash as well, a synthetic rib knit in dark green.  It has a nice weight, a bit heavier than a cotton knit.  The only issue was that it was 44" wide instead of 60" required by the pattern.    

I modified the skirt pattern pieces so that they would fit the width of the fabric by taking away 3 to 5 inches at the hem circumference in three locations per pattern, with the total of 12 locations for the entire skirt, and without changing the waist circumference.

The original dress has a skirt which is a complete circle. Instead of a narrow hem, I did 2.5" hem. My DD1 is about 5'3" tall and wanted the skirt to be shorter than the original.



In terms of sewing, I did some extra work on the dress.  I added a cotton tape along the seam allowance in the center back where a zipper was applied, and along the waist seam.  I also added an elastic tape along the upper edge of the bodice to prevent overstretching after the upper bodice was assembled. It would have been much easier had I sewn the upper edge of the bodice fabric and lining together first and applied under stitching and elastic tape along the seam without the rest of the bodice assembled.

Since the fabric was rather heavy, I had to hand sew the fashion fabric and lining together along the waist line to prevent the fashion fabric to stretch out.

My DD1 is ready to go out to the party.