Pattern Hacks & Tutorials

Hacking the Pattern – McCall’s 6744, Part 2

Image of McCall's sewing pattern 6744 of 4 dresses. Text overlay bottom in a green triangle reads hack this dress, how to remove the waist seam. At the bottom the site address is petite font dot com.
Image of McCall's sewing pattern 6744 of 4 dresses. Text overlay at the top in a pink box reads hack this dress, McCall's 6744 remove the waist seam. At the bottom the site address is petite font dot com.

A year ago I posted about a McCall’s 6744 hack that in itself was already 8 months old at the time. It was a racerback tank top hack of View A/B I’d made in early 2017.

It’s now summer 2019. And I just remembered I never posted Part 2 of that hack series. My bad.

Posts like this are nice for celebrating how far my sewing has come. In early 2017 I had been sewing for all of a few months. The list of things I didn’t know about sewing could fill the entire ocean!

For example, I didn’t yet know that I was short-waisted, and that’s why elasticated waists never worked on me. The elastic always fell in the wrong place.

I could do a full bust adjustment, but that was about it. I never bothered with round back, sway back, or length adjustments. I usually just took length off at the hem. What’s the big deal, right?

Suffice to say I’ve learned a LOT about my body in the intervening 3 years! It’s been great.

I’ve also gotten a little better at illustrating pattern hacks!

This one is incredibly easy. You’re basically taking the waist seam out of this dress and mashing the bodice with the skirt to create just one front and one back piece.

Note: this is for Views A and B of this dress. It won’t work for the wrap versions.

How to Remove a Dress Waist Seam

If you do need to adjust the bodice to the pattern in any way (full bust adjustment, shortening), do that first. Then follow these 4 easy steps.

  1. Draw the seam lines along the bottom of the bodice and top of the skirt (shown in blue).
  2. Overlap both pieces so the seam lines are on top of each other.
  3. True the side seam. This means to smooth out the edge (shown in red).
  4. You now have a new whole front pattern piece.

4 line drawings showing the stages of this hack. 1. Bodice and skirt pieces have seam lines drawn in blue. 2. The seam lines are overlapped. 3. The side seam is smoothed out in red. 4. A new pattern piece is created to be cut on the fold.

Simply follow these same steps for the back bodice and skirt and you’re done!

That’s exactly how I ended up with this lovely blue & white striped dress. El Hubo calls it my Picasso dress, a nod to the artist’s infamous striped shirts.

Front view of curly haired brunette in a striped blue and white knit tank dress based on McCall's 6744 pattern. She is smiling at the camera and has her hands on her hips. Text at bottom reads petite font dot com.

(Side story: on our honeymoon in France, I was thisclose to purchasing a replica striped sweater at the Musée National Picasso – Paris gift shop. But it was simply too expensive. I believe it was around 90€, or something equally over budget…)

Back view of curly haired brunette in a striped blue and white knit tank dress based on McCall's 6744 pattern. Text at bottom reads petite font dot com.

Somehow I even managed to almost completely line up my stripes!

Side view of curly haired brunette in a striped blue and white knit tank dress based on McCall's 6744 pattern. Text at bottom reads petite font dot com.

Back to the hack for a second. This technique should work for almost any knit dress that isn’t a wrap front (like Views C and D of this pattern). Woven dress patterns may require a little extra finagling with waist darts to get the same fit, so keep that in mind!

What pattern will you apply this basic hack to?

 

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Cosmo Martinelli
Cosmo Martinelli
Jul 5, 2019 10:21 am

After going to fashion design school and learning how to design for a standard set of measurements than any model could step into and look good, I’m amazed at how much effort I have to put into fitting myself. I am actually too afraid of the work involved to sew a dress even though that is my preferred summer garment. I know sooooo many adjustments will be needed. Not to mention my body is different every single day. It’s no wonder models so often have EDs.

Cindy
Cindy
Jul 10, 2019 9:06 pm

Where can I get this pattern? It’s just what I’ve been looking for