What can I say, I just love making summer dresses. Can you blame me, as summers here in Florida are spiking hot and humid. Wearing a dress in the evenings makes it so much easier.

This time I wanted to make evening / going out dress, something cute. When I want that, I always go for my Tried and True Pattern, McCall’s 7745.

Fabric of my choice was Minerva Exclusive Cat Coalescence Crush Velvet Stretch Knit Fabric. I really like the feeling of this velvet fabric against my skin, plus tigerish pattern is adorable and looks very nice on a dress. This fabric has very nice stretch, that makes it great for making dresses, tops, skirts, pillows and much more. It is very versatile, as there are so many different garments that I can see this sexy fabric to be used for. I only used velvet for sewing few times in the past 10 years, but every time I used it, I only had great experiences with it. The only reason I don’t use it that much, is it can get very hot in velvet, and there are not that many opportunities to wear it in Florida.

First thing as always, I do like to pre-wash my fabric on the normal setting and also same to dry it in the dryer. I didn’t notice any shrinkage and best part there was no wrinkles to combat. So, there was no pre ironing needed.

Once fabric was dry, it was ready for me to have some fun with it.

Now that I already know which pattern I would be using, McCall’s 7745, just needed to select which options. Went with combo of View A for top. I just ditched ruffles, as when I made this dress before with ruffles, it made my arms felt restricted somehow. So, I left it bare, with shoulder straps only. For skirt, I did View D, as I like to have little leg showing when walking.

Made sure that pattern pieces are positioned, so stretch would be where it is needed. Cut size 12, but one thing I forgot is that this time I was using stretchy fabric, so I ended up sizing it to 10.

I did use zig-zag stich around the waist when I was putting top and skirt together and also when I was hamming the skirt, but for the rest of the sew, I used straight stitch.

This was an easy and breezy sew, maybe because I am so used to this pattern, but one for sure, I like how it turned out.

Next step, nice date night with hubby, as I have perfect excuse to wear this dress.

Thank you for reading and happy sewing.

XOXO Tanja

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