My First Scuba Dress McCalls M7122 Sewing Pattern Review

I recently made a Frankie Baseball Tshirt by Tilly and the buttons and I enjoyed how quickly and easily it went together. I really wanted to try the same style for a dress that went together so quickly.

So I bought the M7122 from Mccalls. I got some lovely scuba fabric. There is a lovely selection of scuba fabric available on Ebay.

Well, as luck would have it, my measurements are a large in Mccalls sizing and my pattern is a XS to M. So I graded up a size.

As you can see in the picture, I offset the lines by the same amount as from small to medium.

Here is my dress cut out.

All ready to go. The fabric is really lovely to work with.

I'm not sure if the issue here is with the grading, but I used the notches to align the pattern pieces. I trimmed off the corners and it actually worked just fine.

The rest went together really well and surprisingly quickly. The most time-consuming part is pinning the neck. I used my overlocker to sew the neckband in half without cutting off the seam allowance. It behaves so much better when you are pinning it. I sewed and cut to the 5/8 seam allowance when I joined the neckband.

I want to make more of them. The only thing I would change is I'd definitely make the neckband shorter so it sits a little flatter. But it looks really good. I'm very happy with it and I need a chance to wear it now.

The lovely thing with raglan sleeves is how much less fabric is ultimately wasted. I have enough left over for a small skirt or something. At least I have a lovely dress I can wear to the office or to a restaurant. The scuba fabric looks as though it would be great for contrasting sleeves for some T-shirts.