It seems like this McCalls 7969 Dress Pattern took the internet sewing community by a storm a couple of years ago, and for good reason! The dress has billowy dramatic sleeves and an easy to fit pull-over style. I really enjoyed adding this dress to my pattern collection because it doesn’t require any notions besides interfacing. I ended up altering the pattern slightly and will tell you about those alterations and the notions when we get to the final fit.
The Fabric
Eyelet fabrics have really caught my fancy recently and I thought this dress would be perfect for it. Though I seldom wear white, I was only able to find white options at the local fabric stores. I ended up finding a lovely white eyelet gauze at Hobby Lobby, and of course waited for their bi-weekly sale to purchase the yardage I needed. This was my first time working with an eyelet fabric and also a gauze. I will certainly be making more of both in the future. At the store I did muse about dyeing the fabric if it looked too bridal, but I am enamored with the final product as it is. With such dramatic sleeve, the dress is a bit of a statement piece and white suits it very well.
The Bodice
This dress worked up very quickly for me. I had never worked with this kind of sleeve before, I think the best description I could give it is a gathered raglan sleeve with a bell. The sleeves use a tremendous amount of fabric, but all together the bodice was very easy to assemble. I used french seams, as per my usual, to attach the back and front bodice together, as well as attach the sleeves. Traditionally, its not recommended to use a french seam around a curve, but I found the sleeve attachments to be straight enough that I didn’t experience any puckering or problems using a french seam.
My first go around with attaching the binding, I had not gathered the sleeves quite enough, and the front shoulder seam fell too far forward. This was easy to fix, but seam ripping a gauze eyelet in all white was tedious work. I recommend trying on the bodice, minding pins and needles, to check for the same issue if you decide to make this dress.
Bias Binding
Heed my warning! I completely forgot to press my bindings, and it caused a world of trouble when it came to stitching the binding by hand. I also made another oopsie with the binding. I trimmed the seam allowance far too short, which also made hand stitching the binding a slow and painful process.
The Skirt
I made the skirt longer than View A for the pattern, but not quite floor length like the other views. I simply tried on the bodice and measured from that point to where I wanted the dress to hit on the leg. You can do this step without trying on the dress to by measuring the length of the bodice and subtracting it from the shoulder to your desired skirt length. You will need to add a bit of yardage to the recommendation for View A if you are going to increase the skirt length.
The original skirt pattern is very gathered. I don’t love to add that much bulk around the waist, and decided not to do the full skirt width for this reason. I have read a few reviews of this pattern where they did the same.
MOD: Waist Ties
The dress was hemmed and finished and I tried it on and wasn’t fully pleased. It was VERY loose, next go around I might make a medium instead of a large. To remedy this, I added waist ties. The selvage edge of the eyelet fabric was rather wide with no eyelets, I took a long strip and folded it in half, seamed up the edge pressed it and turned it right side out. Then I trimmed off two portions to make waist loops for the tie to pass though, approx 1.5 inches.
Because the dress was completely finished, including seam finishing for the waist seam, I carefully seam ripped two small sections, just large enough for the loops to pass through. All of those layers were a little bulky for the sewing machine to pass over, but it was able to manage. I finished the seams over those two spots and finished off the ends of the waist ties. I placed the loops around 5 inches in from the side seams on both sides, I love the effect that it gave and am pleased to have a bit more waist definition in a flowy comfy dress.
MOD: Snap
When fitting the bodice, I modified the depth of the V. To do this, I crossed over the two front panels slightly past the center line recommended. I am not a very busty gal, but bending over a lot with my toddler I like to keep my necklines higher. However, I found that the bodice still opened up and was “at risk” of exposing me! But my husband lovingly pointed out that it made it rather nursing friendly. This gaping was easy fixed with a hand sewn snap on the insides of the bias binding edge. I highly recommend this modification if you are experiencing some gaping at the front.
MOD: Elastic sleeve cuff
The Sleeves are HUGE. Which is super fun, but ultimately didn’t feel super functional for my lifestyle. You can take the sleeves in more by gathering tighter and not using the complete length of the bias binding recommended for your size. In the future I will probably do that, but it didn’t seem worth the fuss to seam rip two sleeves for a slight difference. I had already completely hand sewn the bias down, but did seam rip about a .5 inch to allow 1/4 inch elastic and a bodkin to pass through. I did just enough elastic to gather the sleeve about another inch and really enjoyed the final product.
Final Impressions
I will certainly make it again! I have seen another blogger hack this pattern into a top and I am excited to try that variation. I would also love to make this dress in a gingham or patterned fabric!
I didn’t love the huge volume of the sleeves. It makes it hard to layer and just seemed a little impractical for daily wear. I would love to find a way to minimize the sleeve, and maybe make it a full length sleeve too. I will need to take some time to think of this modification. The sleeve pattern is gigantic and oddly shaped being a billowy, gathered raglan sleeve. If you have any ideas for how to take in the volume of the bell without sacrificing the gathers at the top I would love to hear your suggestions in the comments below.
Overall this dress was great! Its beginner friendly, worked up very quickly, and super easy to wear and fit. Though I did several modifications, the dress is still true to the pattern and I think turned out just lovely, I hope you agree. Many people seam to love this dress pattern, and I wonder if you have made one for yourself! Comment your experience below.
Happy Sewing,
Andrea