Pattern Review for McCall's Fashion Star M6756 and a lesson Learned

Hi

I just got finished with McCall's 6756.  I am going to try and be "Nice" for this review because the picture is really nice.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am making my girls their wardrobe for this school year.  I started kind of late, but I am catching up at the speed of Wonder Mom (our kids think we can do anything)

Since I had already gotten a few pieces for my youngest daughter, I thought I would throw in something for my oldest while I had the machines running.  When school got out in the Spring my oldest daughter fell in love with these shorts and she wanted them in lace.

 
Seeing as how I liked the concept I got the pattern and the material to make the shorts, but kind of delayed putting things into action.  Over the Summer she mentioned the shorts maybe once or twice, but she wasn't going crazy on me because she knew I would eventually get around to it.

I started these shorts on Saturday,  The instructions were very easy with the exception of the overlapped zipper.  Here is where installing different types of zipper methods comes in handy.  I didn't follow the directions at this point because they were all over the place, even with the illustrations.  If you have Simplicity 1918, this is a good pattern that shows how to set in a lapped zipper.  I've sewn from this pattern before and I love this one.  I actually plan on using this pattern to remake the lace shorts that my oldest daughter wants.

Well, back to M6756,  the agony was going as well as to be expected, but to my dismay and never ending torture, when I called her in to try them on ( she was grinning worst than Granny Clampett), her face was too shocked when she could not pull them up past her knees.  The final garment was pretty, but about 4 sizes too small.  Yep, I cut an 8 because even though she is a 6, I like for her to have room and comfort.  I quickly ran through my mind of different solutions to the "TOO SMALL" theory, but even if I let the seams out every where, these shorts were not going to fit her.

Now what do you do with lace shorts that are too small?  Find someone that IS small and make some adjustments.  I didn't have to do much, but it was painful watching my oldest daughter deal with her baby sister getting the shorts that were made for her.  I removed the zipper, kept the extensions to make a faux zipper look, trimmed the waist (1 inch), made a casing for the waist from the existing band fabric and here is the final outcome to M6756.

Lace detail

I would like to say that this would be my favorite go to pattern for shorts, but it's not.  I like the concept of the shorts and that fact that it is fairly easy to do, but the sizing is all wrong here.  Advice for this pattern, if you have this pattern and want to make it, think of it in terms of making a new pattern all together.  A size 8 would actually be a size 12.  I used size A5 (6-14).  If I were going to make this pair of shorts for myself, I would have had to buy another pattern, sized for (14-22) because the sizing if a little off.  I would not chance trying to make these in my normal 14 because this experience was enough for this pattern.

I love McCall's patterns and this one pattern does not spoil the whole batch for me.  This like everything else has a learning lesson Measure twice, Cut once.

I hope you enjoyed today's review.  Thank you for viewing and until next time,,,, LOLPOH,,  Dellia