I have been wanting to sew a swing dress/shirt for a long time, and since I’ve been feeling good, I jumped on the opportunity to use the McCall’s pattern M6886. If you follow Riva La Diva, she always uses it, so I knew it had to be a great basic dress pattern.
The pattern is very basic and doesn’t have darts, so it’s best for knit fabrics. The fabric I used is from The Loft (Michael Lavine’s Upstairs), and I was a little bit unsure of it when I was buying it, but I basically love it. The pattern is unique (kind of reminds me of a stone wall), and the fabric didn’t roll at all, so it was really easy to work with.
Swing dresses are super easy to draft yourself with any t-shirt or dress pattern you have. All you have to do is:
- Cut out the main bodice from the top (where the neckline is) until the bottom of the arm hole, like normal.
- Then, put your finger on the bottom of the arm hole and pivot the bottom of your pattern to the angle you desire (making the bottom wider).
- Cut a straight line from the bottom of the arm hole all the way to the bottom of your dress.
- Once you’ve done that, you can just cut the bottom like normal, matching up with the original bottom. (Here is a great graphic of how it should look about halfway down the page.)
Swing dresses are great for maternity and non-maternity, and I was so glad to sew one up that I can wear even after pregnancy!
I love this pattern. It’s so basic and versatile that I’m excited to be able to use it for future dress creations.
And in case you were wondering, here is the GIANT mural I was standing in front of. 🙂
