Other rappers diss me, say my rhymes are sissy...

Yo. I broke my streak of crappy, stressful sewing. I actually finished something, you guys! I haven't finished something properly since my floral Peony back in November, and as I blogged here previously, it has been stressing me out. Enter McCall's 5517 from 1960:

This pattern was a gift from my friend SJ, along with this little beauty:

I absolutely adore both of them, but I looked at the face of one of these babes on the front of the pattern envelope and decided to save this one for a later date:

Yeah. I don't think so, bitch. You ain't ready for me yet.

Anyway. This make was not without incident, but it was exactly the sort of easy, fun sewing I needed to get my taste back for my hobby. And you know what, my finished dress is far from perfect and it's probably not the best thing I have ever sewed but I don't care because I finished it, and I love it:

Ric-rack. Ms Scruffy Badger would be proud! So, I bought this yellow broadcloth with the intention of making my Megan dress, but this pattern called to me and would not be ignored. I didn't check the measurements, or the yardage (which resulted in Nic making a midweek dash to Royal Fabrics to buy me the extra metre I needed for this voluminous skirt) I just cut the fabric and hope for the best. And you know, I think if my button placement had been a bit better, the bodice would fit fairly perfectly. Next time!

Back view. Yeah - those upper buttons need to move up by an inch. But snap fasteners do the job admirably for a dress I'm probably mainly going to have to wear with a cardigan during our British summer. I love my fabric-covered buttons, though!

So, apart from a few mistakes which were all mine (I screwed up one of my buttonholes a wee bit and the pockets are a bit wonky, and my gathering stitches snapped in the hour it took me to gather the skirt) this dress was delightfully straightforward to make. And even the mistakes were not stressful - I just shrugged my shoulders and moved on. This is a first for me - there was no swearing involved in this make and I put it down when I got tired. This dress took ages because I did loads by hand - obviously I sewed on the ric rack by hand, but I also hand finished all of the skirt seams and I hand hemmed this baby. I didn't have to - I think if I'd done this stuff on my machine this make would have taken a few hours at best - but I was really enjoying the actual sewing of this. I like hand sewing, and I watched a lot of Dawson's Creek while I sewed this. So yeah, basically sewing this dress made me feel happy and I know wearing it will make me feel happy! I need to add some snap fasteners to the skirt, though - this wraps at the back and I am very paranoid that a gust of wind will flip the skirt apart and display my bum to the world.

The sun even came out! The butterfly brooch was a wedding favour from my darling Emma's wedding, and doesn't the dress go totally pefectly with my cherry Vivienne Westwood shoes?!

Extreme happiness in dress form - thank you so much for the pattern, Ms S.J!

I will make this dress again. I'm sure Handmade Jane will approve of my idea of making it in a lovely royal gingham. And then I think I'll probably pass the pattern on - I feel I want to spread the love.

Yellow is one of those colours that I always thought I couldn't wear. But then I got a yellow cardigan (in basically this exact shade) which you all have seen me wearing lots of times, and it made me embrace yellow. So I may still make my Megan dress after all!

Right - now I have got some stuff to do so I'm off. Later!