Why Sleep When You Can Be Sewing?

With a major objective of this Taj Mahal Travel SWAP being FAST&EASY -- I sewed a travel wardrobe in under a week including an all-nighter the night before our flight -- a sure-fire bet is to pull out a pattern sewn before: McCall's 5313. Indeed I had sewn this previously during a frenzied all-nighter of vacation sewing. I figure, you can always sleep on the plane. Why sleep when you can be sewing? Here's my previous review at PR.com about McCall's 5313.

Below are garments created for the India travel SWAP -- the brown/beige pattern fabric is rayon and the black with melon flowers is lightweight polyester. The black fabric pleated nicely at the bodice seam, shown below. With both, I erred on the side of sewing a bit big, due to not having time for proper fitting. And with both, the bodice needed to be taken in. An opportunity for a button "design embellishment" on the center front on the brown/beige jumper, and with the black one, I took in the side seams.

The brown jumper is nearly ankle length and the black one is knee length.






Inside construction -- Only bodices are lined so the jumpers are super airy and light. Used french seams nearly everywhere because both fabrics frayed a lot and this made clean quick finish. I put more time into finishing the black jumper. Because the fabric has flecks of gold, I finished some inside seams with gold binding. Weird, but I know it's there and feel better about the garment. Both have center back zippers. I had to hand-sew the grosgrain ribbon straps, because I did those last so I would know how long to make them. The directions tell you to sew them into the seams, which I'd recommend rather than hand-sewing, to eliminate pulling.


A sewing assistant and I were very tired after this sewing marathon.


Love this little face! She worked really hard, pushing everything off the edge of the sewing table, and "guarding" fabric and pattern tissue. It hurt my productivity, but she sure had fun.