Friday, February 12, 2010

Baby girl summer dresses M5834

I finished one dress using McCall's pattern M5834. I purchased Tutti Frutti fabrics last September at Hancock Fabrics. This pattern is really easy. I usually don't like patterns from the easy rack because some of my experience has been that the patterns are more complicated than described or just boring. This pattern makes cute baby dresses and are so easy that last week I went to Joann Fabrics and got more Tutti Frutti fabric to make more dresses. The only complication with this pattern are the binding and the elastic on the tiny panties.

Here is the first finished summer dress. I used purchased lavender bias tape. I hand stitched the tape which was very time consuming. I also hand basted the sleeves.
Here are the tiny bloomers.
I am almost done with this strawberry model. I decided to make the binding with some extra fabric. It is looking pretty neat.
The rest of the tutti fabric cut and ready for sewing. I may finished before June, hopefully!
There still some sewing for myself involved. Hopefully I will sew this before winter ends.

10 comments:

JC said...

These are so cute! And pretty colors, too. You are absolutely right about the "Easy" rack. In my opinion, not good for the true beginner/novice to embark. :-)

Anonymous said...

Hai,

I recently bought this pattern too ( MCcall's M5834). But I don't understand the sewing directions for the armhole. The pattern is including 1,5 cm seam allowance. As well for the armhole??

Can you help me?

greetings from Holland

Unknown said...

Hi anonymus from Holland,
Most patterns always say 1.5 cm seam allowance. It is up to you to decide sometimes if that seam allowance is necessary. In this case I think it is a printing mistake because binding or bias tape is required. You need to zig-zag or do a reinforced seam (regular straight seam is what I did) around the arm holes as it says on the instructions. Over this seam if you are going to ad the sleeves, sew the sleeves then add the binding. It is very easy. I am on the process of making 4 more of this dresses. I will take a picture of the armholes today.

Anonymous said...

Lizz,

thank you for responding. I feel a little bit stupid :-( because I still don't fully understand it. Maybe your pictures will help me a lot.

I'll give it a try.

Greetings from Holland again, Joan

Anonymous said...

Yes, after translating your comment I think I know how to do it. I never heard about staystitch, so I was confused about that.

I figure out that the seam of the armhole only 1/4"(6 mm) is. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

But is the seam allowance of the shoulder 5/8" (1,5 cm)??

greetz Joan

Unknown said...

I am sorry but I just had twins, they are six months and I am trying to sew and blog at the same time plus all the other things...it take me a while to post pictures, etc. I may take pictures today and post them tomorrow. I am slow.

Anyway, as I said.. the seam measure is up to you. You don't need to follow every step of a pattern when sewing. They write those instructions to make it easier for you, but always use your creativity and do what works for you. On my case, I didn't measure the seam allowance. I just made the fabric even before handstitching the binding.

Staystich means that you will sew a regular stitch just to make the fabric more stable so that it won't rip when you wash it. In this case they recomend that instead of zig zag because it would hide better under the binding.

Unknown said...

Hello, can you tell me where and how you place all those 4 ties in picture D? I am totally confused....

Thank you so much! the dress looks so cute!!

Unknown said...

F and J,
After doing a few dresses with this pattern, the best way is to serge or zig zag the dress before attaching together, then fold (like a french seam) and attach ties where the dot in the pattern suggest to do it. After doing that then sew all parts together. It gives a prettier finish. You also need to leave a little hole on the right side (I believe) so that one of the ties may pass thru it.

Unknown said...

Thank you for your answer. I just did what I can to finish the dress. It does look nice on the picture! But just like you said, maybe I should do french seams next time to make it look nicer inside too. The instructions are not very clear.....

Thank you for sharing!!

Joy

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I love the images, I have a little sister and I would like to buy her some similar dresses , The design and the style are really cute, thanks for sharing!!22dd