Latest sewing: A shirred cotton frock for a 4 year old friend and McCalls 6069, in a poly knit from Spotlight.
No pattern for the shirred frock, just a large rectangle with 12 lines of shirring and 4 straps, one seam down the back, hem top and bottom and done.
The fabric is a quilting cotton (the design is called floragraphix III.) I didn't notice I had shirred the wrong end until I had done all 12 rows, so the swallows are flying upside down. Sigh. I couldn't bring myself to waste all that shirring elastic by unpicking and starting again. I'm trying to decide if I point it out to the young one's mother or keep quiet and see if they notice. Maybe I can claim it is to make the design more abstract. We'll see.
The McCalls dress has several reviews on Patternreview.com.
Like some other sewists, I used the square neck front bodice for the back, because I didn't fancy a cowl back on this. I rounded off the back neckline as you can see in the photo.
Some reviewers also noted that the skirt seemed quite tight, which wasn't a look I wanted in an elastic waisted frock, so I added a few centimetres width to the skirt. I did the side seam pockets too, but I think I'd leave them out if I made this again, they don't sit neatly in this drapey fabric and give a bit of a harem skirt look around the hips. If I don't end up liking the pockets after wearing, I might sew up the sides and take the pockets off, easy enough to do. Shame, as I love pockets in a frock. I made a thin self-fabric tie belt too, although it's barely visible on the busy print.
Here are the pics:
