Vintage McCall’s 6210: All The Dramatic Dress Elements

I have such a huge backlog of finished objects that I’ve sewn over the past few months but never blogged. This is pretty much the only one that’s seasonally appropriate at the moment. I’m starting here, but don’t intend to allow the rain and wind outside to keep me from putting up pictures of the more summery ones in the next few weeks.

The pattern for this dress is vintage, but just barely. It’s McCall’s 6210 from 1978. I went for view A with the maxi length and the cowl collar because I love the drama of having those elements together.

Annoyingly, when I bought this pattern it was listed as “used and complete” by the seller, but turned out to only have all the pieces for certain views. I ended up using the back piece it had, even though it was intended to be the piece for the view without the collar. Not having the other piece, I’m not sure how different the pieces actually were; it seemed to work out all right.

The sleeve piece I wanted to use was also missing from this pattern, so I pulled a similar sleeve piece out of another 1970’s pattern from my stash. Bishop sleeves were either quite common in the 1970’s or I gravitate towards that look and only collect 1970’s patterns that include that kind of sleeve. I wish I could remember which pattern I pulled it from, but I can’t find it at the moment.

The pattern is a half-size (bust 41) so my alterations were minimal. I did do a full bicep alteration on the sleeve because as drafted it would have had maybe 1/2 inch of ease which wouldn’t have looked right at all.

The sleeves are gathered into a simple cuff. This was a really easy sleeve to construct, but turns out not to be the most practical for wearing. I love the look of it, but next time might go for a cuff with a button so I can roll up my sleeves when I need to. I don’t think I’ll be able to cook in this one. The neckline is incredibly practical though. It hits that sweet spot where it’s certainly scooped, but doesn’t flash anything when I lean over.

Let’s talk about fabric. I found this on Fabric.com in early fall and fell in love with the giant floral print and the dark background. So many dark floral fabrics seem to include colors that are less than flattering for me, so when I found this one with an ideal color palette for my soft summer coloring, I didn’t hesitate to order it. I’m glad I did order it when I did because I haven’t seen it on the site since then. I think it was labelled challis, but I’m pretty sure it’s actually rayon twill. It’s heavier and more opaque than most challis I’ve encountered, but still drapes perfectly for this dress. Ironing it is a bit of a pain, since there’s so much fabric. Its quite exhausting, really.

Overall I’m pretty much in love with this dress. It’s completely different from anything else in my closet, but still feels like me. I wish I could count this one for stash-busting; at least I managed to keep all that yardage from joining the rest of the fabric sitting around in the basement. How’s the stash-busting going? Yeah, lets not talk about that right now.