McCall 4440 (again!) - The "For the Love of Blue" Dress

When I think about this dress, two songs come to mind: "Dock of the Bay" and "My Favorite Things". I'm landlocked here so, you probably can't tell this about me but, I am a water. baby. Ok, actually, that's how my family frequently referred to me because I was always the first one in and last one out. I loved love the beach!  Given this, it's no surprise that I was drawn to this cute sea shell print fabric at Hancock.  Even better?  It's blue!  My lifelong favorite color. It didn't take long at all to decide this fabric was coming home with me.

I originally planned a skirt but, as it was being cut, I envisioned a dress with a white bodice to accent and break up the childish print.  Luckily, I had asked for a generous length.  To keep the bodice from looking too plain, I searched for just the right lace for an overlay.  I was heart-set on scallops.  I thought it would be cute if the lace resembled waves rolled toward the shore. Cheesy, yes but, what can I say? :-)  Thanks to another stroke of luck, upon my next visit to Hancock, I saw the perfect eyelet among their new fabrics.

Choosing the pattern was easy.  I knew McCall's 4440 would fit well and work to feature just the right amount of both the eyelet and the sea shell fabric.  But, I did not want another spaghetti-strap dress.  I wanted to be able to wear a normal bra! (tmi?)  To accomplish this, I made wider straps out of three-scallop-rows-high strips of the eyelet, folding under ~1/4" and then folding them in half, just shy of the outer scallop row, which I then hand-trimmed for a girlie touch.

Of course, having wider straps would be useless if their placement was wrong.  Fortunately, Stephanie had just inquired for her reader's measurements (she drafting an awesome new pattern to share!) and one measurement asked for the distance between our bra straps.  Since I had just taken this, when it came time to place my straps on the bodice, it quickly occurred to me to use that measurement as the guideline.  I did the same for the back.

From there, it was easy-peasy!  Since I'll be wearing this in Texas this summer, I chose to leave it unlined (the eyelet is underlined with batiste) - time cut in half.  And, since it was unlined, I chose to sew the side seams with my brand new serger - time cut in half again!  Woo hoo!

So comfortable and so quick - just a short afternoon and then it was off to play by the lake!

Since this was for the "Childhood" theme on Sew Weekly (see my post here), I decided to have a bit of fun with the photos, imitating a game of hide-and-seek.

"...5...6...7..."

My turn to hide. They'll never find me behind this tree!

I'd better get back to that vacation queue!  Have a great week, everyone! x