McCalls 5568

With all the beautiful round yoke dresses out there, I knew I was going to have to try one out for Myra soon, so when McCalls patterns were last on sale, I picked this one up. I might have kept looking if I had checked out the details, though. This one has a (gasp!) zipper. I hate zippers. Still it turned out really cute, and the zipper went in without swearing, so I may have to thank this pattern for that at least.I really love the way that it turned out, but I have a few gripes about this pattern. That lovely yoke, with no topstitching at all, was ridiculously fussy and involved way more hand sewing then I ever want to do. It went together very strangely and I am not completely happy with it, despite some serious ripping out and re-sewing to get the shoulders to line up. The instructions call for constructing the front and back yoke separately, then sewing them together at the shoulders, sort of like a lined vest, but way smaller (and more complicated!). I must have fudged the seam allowances, because when I got to that step, they didn't line up at all. I had to shave a little off the front and open up the (trimmed!) seam in the back to get them to sort of line up. Very frustrating.

Despite all that, I think it turned out really adorable, and I am contemplating how to adjust it to make it less fussy. I'm thinking that if I get rid of the zipper and put buttons on the shoulders, I can construct the yoke without all that weirdness.

Oh, and the bloomers are my usual Butterick 4110. I'm going to have to retrace that pattern, it gets so much use!