 Hi you guys, Lindsay here. Welcome back to my channel Inside the Hem and thank you so much for joining me for our Spring Sew Along featuring McCall Pattern Company. This is going to be a sew along that is geared toward the beginner sewist. I and McCall's both really want to help get people started in garment sewing. So whether you have never touched a sewing machine in your life or if you're a quilter and you want to try making clothes for yourself or you're used to making kids clothes, accessories, bags, and either whatever it is and you want to try garment sewing, this is going to be the sew along for you. Working with McCall's we decided to pick a pattern from their Learn to Sew for Fun collection. They have dozens of patterns there for you to choose from and they all really, really break down the process of sewing a garment starting from picking the fabric to the size of the garment that you're going to be choosing and then obviously each and every step is laid out beautifully as well. So we're really just going to take what they already have in the instruction booklet and separate it out into eight videos. So the sew along is going to last for eight weeks every single Friday. We are going to post a video for the sew along. We have chosen McCall's 7405. It looks like this super cute dress pattern. It was important to me to choose a pattern that was easy enough for a straight out of the gate beginner someone who's never like even turned on a sewing machine before but something that was also really stylish, really cute, something that you would enjoy wearing and that people might even compliment you on which is like the holy grail of sewing your own clothes is when someone's like where did you get that and you're like oh I made it and they're like what you made that it never gets old. This pattern features a loose fitting pullover dress that has neckline gathers so kind of like a halter top. It has a back neck slit which you can't see from any of this but there's like a little slit right here in the back and then you tie this into a bow and then it has hemline variations. You see has a belt and D has an elasticized waist so there are several options obviously here for you to choose. I am going to be making and I've gone back and forth knee length maxi knee length maxi and just based on the fabric selection that I have I'm going to end up with the knee length but I think the maxi is going to be stunning for any of you that make that I am like so jealous and I'll make another version of it I'm sure but I'm also going to add the elastic to the waist because that's just what's most flattering on my body type I'm a pear shape so I need waist definition that instantly slims me and makes me look like 10 pounds lighter but I'm also going to make the belt too so that's the beauty of sewing your own clothes is that you can mix and match all of these options to create a garment that in your mind is like perfect also when you go to the website there are going to be two different size options you were going to have four to 14 and you're going to have 16 to 26 but when you get the pattern it's going to be letters extra small small and medium represents the six to 14 category and then medium large extra large I'm guessing would represent 16 to 26 size range you're not going to be buying the size that you would normally buy in a store when you are sewing clothes you kind of just forget about that the ready to wear clothing industry has adjusted their sizing over the years to be smaller and smaller and smaller whereas the sewing patterns have really kept the same sizing when they started making sewing patterns which is why there's such a discrepancy so don't be alarmed if you take your measurements and you're like four five six sizes different than what you buy in the store that's totally normal this is a forgiving silhouette in that it's very loose and drapey so you don't have to necessarily get it exactly right in terms of fitting your measurements if we just get it close the loose drapey quality of the garment will hide a million cents so another reason why I picked this one so pick your size that you feel most like represents you you'll see something that says size charts so you're going to want to click on that if you're shopping in online if you're shopping in store somewhere it's always on from a calls patterns it's always on this flappy thing they're all right there but you're going to take a tape measure and you are going to measure your chest and you're actually measuring your high bust which is not the apex of your bust but right where your like armpits are right along this line here and you take a tape measure and you take that measurement and you write it down then you're going to take your waist measurement the easiest way to find it is to bend over to the side and you're going to find that little area when you bend over that like where you fall in on yourself and that is going to be your waist line so then you want to take the waist take the tape measure and you want to measure all around that area write that number down and then you want to measure your hip you're going to go really low like a lot lower than you think you're not measuring where your hip bones are you're measuring like the widest part of your butt so if you have a bubble butt it's going to be low on your thighs if you have like a flat butt then it's kind of anywhere in that range but you're trying to find the widest part of yourself because you want to make sure that this is going to fit all parts of you and that's a part of you that part of your bum is a part of you so you're going to measure that part and write it down and then you're going to compare those measurements to the size chart either online or on here you can be in different columns of the measurement chart that's okay just find whichever one whichever size best corresponds to those measurements if you are in between sizes err on the smaller size like i said it's a very forgiving pattern in terms of size and then i'm also going to provide you with a couple of tips on how to alter the pattern to better fit your body so pick a size buy that pattern in that size now we're going to talk about fabric so i don't want to necessarily tell you go buy this fabric but i do want to try and educate you a little bit on what each of the recommended fabrics are shally is going to be a very lightweight woven fabric woven meaning not stretchy it's very very lightweight very fluid very flowy very floaty all of those lovely things that make a great garment a lot of times it's made from rayon which can also be considered a sustainable fabric you know it's not made from chemicals or anything like that it's a natural type of fabric and the downsides to shally are that it's going to be a little bit harder to cut out when you put your scissors through the fabric inevitably it lifts the fabric up a little bit and every movement that you make with your scissors especially if you're not super proficient in cutting is going to shift that fabric around and you're not going to get a perfectly cut pattern piece that said again this pattern is super forgiving you don't necessarily have to have it perfectly cut out but if it's not perfectly cut out then maybe some notches won't match up and it could be a slightly more frustrating process so if you're an adventurous person and you're a patient person by all means try shally one more thing they can be a little bit sheer since we're making a dress that you want to point out they can be a little bit on the sheer side so enter at your own risk on a shally the next one is cotton knit knit is one of those things where if you put in cotton knit on a website it's going to give you every kind of cotton knit fabric under the sun and there are a ton there are a ton but if you're at all familiar with like you've come from quilting or from bag making then you might be familiar with some companies like art gallery or cloud nine some of those companies have knit fabrics made in the same prints as their gorgeous quilters cotton those knits are a really really good option for this pattern they are going to be a little bit stable little bit definitely more stable than a shally or another rayon fabric would be so you can also buy jersey cotton jersey is a very common knit imagine like t-shirt fabric that it's going to run a wide variety of weights as well try and stay away from anything that says tissue anything that says like burnout would not be a good option for this you're looking for a light to midweight somewhat stable not a ton of stretch like 35 percent or lower cotton knit and that's just going to produce a really cute comfortable dress right it's going to you know you don't necessarily need this stretch because it's like a loose or fitting garment but it's just going to feel good hanging on your body you know what I mean the next one that they recommend is something called crepe crepe can be a lot like shally in that it is really lightweight floaty drapey all of those qualities but it's got a little bit of texture to it it's it's definitely got almost like little bubbles in it it tends to be a little bit more on the weightier side of a lightweight fabric those little grooves kind of stick to each other a little bit better so it doesn't tend to be as shifty and you can choose rayon crepe you can choose polyester crepe or some blend in there polyester is probably going to be a little bit cheaper so I do like crepe as an option you're not going to find heavyweight crepes that I know of most crepes that you see online are going to be lightweight and drapey which is what you want and then the last one that they recommend is something called gauze gauze is typically made from cotton and you're imagining like a really light light lightweight linen kind of gauze has a lot of texture to it it can be a little bit sheer so you want to watch out for that it can be like tissue sheer so be very careful when you're when you're doing that what I would recommend is going to your local fabric shop with your pattern in hand seeing if they have someone who runs the fabric department and seeing if that person can point you in the right direction the way that I learned about fabric the most was going and looking touching feeling and and committing those qualities to memory I think all of those are really really great options for this dress and it's going to produce something that is just really beautiful lightweight I've said this a thousand times now lightweight drapey it's just going to fall beautifully kind of like away from the body in like a natural type of way even if you're not making the elastic one you still want something lightweight and drapey because we have all this gathering at the neckline I usually make sure that that gathers up nicely and then flows away across the bust beautifully like this one does here so leave any questions that you have for me in the description box I'll do my best to answer them in a timely manner next week we are going to be talking about choosing your exact size so I know that we already chose a size range for the pattern size but we're going to be choosing the exact size of the pattern pieces that you were going to cut out so we're going to be getting into the pattern pieces we're going to be laying them out doing some more measuring cutting into the pattern pieces and you know getting all of that part completely prepped so I hope you'll join me here again next Friday for part two of our sew-along thanks so much for watching and I'll see you then bye