McCall’s 6844

In keeping with my “Creative Fraud” persona, Sarah Gunn from GoodbyeValentino.com made an amazing sweater with some yummy oatmeal boucle’ and  I HAD to have it.  Isn’t this precious? Sorry for the screenshot stuff off my phone. 🙂  If you don’t follow her blog but love to sew garments, you should check her out.

So I immediately hopped over to StyleMaker Fabrics to get the exact same fabric.  They still had some (it’s on backorder as of the date of this post) and then I searched and searched for the pattern by looking for $1.99 sales at JoAnn’s or Hobby Lobby without any luck.  I decided to buy it full price since I couldn’t find it on sale (impatient with impending cold weather) but come to find out, that stinking pattern is out of print.  So Amazon came through again but I had to pay $12.99.  (sigh)  I wanted view B which is a bit longer without the peplum.  Girls built like me ought not wear anything fluffy added to the backside or hips, ya know?

During all my searching, I came across a couple of blogs that had made the same pattern but had not exactly followed the directions in the pattern.  Detective Houndstooth (who has allowed her blog to expire  – shame on her) made the collar using what she called “the burrito method” and I’ll explain that later.  It’s fabulous!

First I had to do an FBA.  I did some searching and chose this method because the description of the fabric says it’s a “knit” and I didn’t want a dart on knit fabric.  Lo and behold, this boucle’ isn’t a knit at all.  There’s no lengthwise or widthwise stretch to this stuff but this FBA worked just fine.  When I’m altering pattern pieces, I like to use Pellon Red Dot Pattern Tracing Cloth.  I love this stuff because it forms to your body for fitting much better than paper and it’s so easy to see movement of measurements by counting dots.  I added 1″ to the FBA since most commercial patterns are a B and I’m …not.

I had to lay the fabric and pattern pieces out on the pool table to cut it all out.

The beauty of the “burrito method” when attaching a collar, is that there are no exposed seams on the inside neckline when you’re finished.  Style Arc describes it here.  Basically, you create the collar (tortilla) as directed and put it face up on the table.  Then you roll up the body of the garment (burrito stuffing) and place the roll in the center of the tortilla.  Then you pull up the sides of the tortilla around the stuffing to meet each other making sure to capture the top edge of the back neckline (lettuce leaf) as you go and match all markings as you sandwich the lettuce between the edges of the collar, er…tortilla.  Pin like crazy to make sure you don’t capture any of the burrito stuffing in the seam other than that single piece of lettuce.  You with me so far?  I ended up with something like this.  That’s the lower collar on top with the interfacing pinned to the upper collar (on the bottom) with the rest of the garment rolled in between.  The back neckline is right sides together with the upper collar and is located between about 10 and 2 o’clock in this burrito roll.  What you see sticking out of the ends are the bottom edges of the front bodice pieces.

Then sew the normal seam allowance from end-to-end and be sure to backstitch.  The hardest part of all this is the wrangling as you pull the insides out and flip it around.  Ta-da!!  Perfect!  Look at that!! Not a seam in sight!  Factory!

My next deviation from the pattern was to sew the sleeves to the sleeve cap opening vs. a set-in sleeve as directed and then sew a long seam up the side seam and down the arm to the wrist.  Here’s the sleeve sewn to the armseye.

I brought out the big guns with the Janome 900 Cover Stitch.  Totally professional on the inside hem and you can’t even see it on the front.

I’m SOooo happy with how this turned out!  I ended up adding a hook & loop to the waist line so it would stay closed.  The only thing I would do different, and this was a total oversight because I was so thrilled with how the burrito turned out, is that I should have narrowed the lower collar by 1/4″ to 3/8″ so that it would naturally roll under.  I have some miniscule collar flipping going on at the back of my neck but my hair covers it.

It totally fits!  I wore it to work today on our first cold day this year and it was so snuggly.  I don’t think my dog is impressed.  🙂  She’s watching me take pictures thinking, “Would you put me outside already and give me my treat?”