McCall's 7833 dress, view C

I love dresses. Like, I seriously love dresses! In my book there is no outfit easier to put together than a dress. Just find the perfect dress, match in some cute shoes, maybe add a necklace or statement earrings if that finishing touch is needed and hey presto! You are dressed and looking fine with fairly minimal effort! No need to match a top to that skirt, or find the perfect sweater for your jeans – just throw on a dress and boom, you are done!

So you can imagine my absolute delight when I found McCalls 7833 pattern. An easy knit dress featuring cool ruching (another design favourite of mine!) that would be a cinch to sew together? Sign me up, ma’am!

This pattern also fulfils another dress requirement of mine: it needs to work during the day, yet be glam enough for an evening out. Yep, I make my dresses work hard! Thankfully this design is elegant meets cute meets va va voom, and will turn heads no matter what room you find yourself in!

My favourite part of the design is the side gathers. You can choose to use a ribbon as I did (grosgrain) or to elasticate it. The best part about using a ribbon is that you can adjust the height of the side gathers each time you wear it. So if you feel like strutting your stuff and showing a bit of leg, just pull those gathers higher! Conversely, if demure is more the order of the day you make the length longer.

I reckon this dress was the quickest frock I have ever sewn. It was done over the course of an afternoon, including cutting out – talk about speedy! I made view C, because I loved the juxtaposition between the length and the side gathers. I also chose the long sleeve option, as I am all about long sleeves when I can get them!

This little number was really easy to sew up, the hardest part being getting the hem to sit nicely on the triangular edge of the long hem. However success was mine after pinning very carefully and pressing before sewing.

The fabric I chose for this was perfect for this dress. I used John Kaldor Portia ITY Silky Knit fabric, ITY meaning Interlock Twist Yarn. When the fabric is produced a twist is put into the yarn, which result in natural elasticity and a gorgeously soft and silky feel to the fabric – perfect for a dress like this design. When I first saw this pattern I thought an animal print jersey could be good, but I am so happy I chose the Duck Egg paint brush daubs – I think it looks amazing, and is a cool point of difference! The fabric feels so lovely, and the drape is just perfect for doing the gathers in this design. It has a decent amount of stretch, and feels lovely and cool to wear.

I used a lightweight knit interfacing for the neck facing, and topstitched the neck edging to ensure the facing always sits flat.

I’m so happy with how this dress turned out that I’m considering making another! A sequinned number could totally be on the cards… 😊

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