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McCalls 7969 (M7969) -sewist cult favourite – is about big sleeves, so I thought the Merchant and Mills cotton hemp blend would work well. More than likely you have heard about McCalls 7969. In 2020, it was one of those viral “it” dresses in sewing land. And I caved into the trend! 

As this was my first time using a McCalls pattern (yes really) I’m pointing out some observations for anyone else who is a big 4 newbie, as well as some specific things about this pattern. Only interested in seeing how it looks when worn? Skip to the end for the link to the IG reel where I show it in action.

Sewing with a McCalls PDF pattern

PDFs only come in letter, A4 and legal size. 

Until recently, McCalls patterns were only available in paper form. I dislike tissue paper immensely, and tracing from tissue paper even more. So I was pretty excited to see that I could buy a PDF version. But there is no A0. For someone who provides A0 printing services to others (click here if you’re in the Netherlands and want to order), this is very very irritating. It is possible to digitally “tape” the A4 pattern together so it’s printable on a wide format printer. But it can be a total pain and you may as well have cut and taped 50ish A4 sheets manually.

Instructions – easy to follow, nicely illustrated.

Instructions are on a separate easy to print file which you can print on A4 if needed. Easy to follow, nicely illustrated although I admit I gave a cursory glance since this was a straightforward sew. Digital instructions make me happy. Easy to Ctrl+F to find what you want. e.g. what is the seam allowance? This brings me to…

Seam allowance of 1.5cm 

My personal preference is always 1cm seam allowance. Actually I learned to sew on a 1.5cm seam allowance. But the longer I sew the more I think it is easier to sew accurately than 1.5cm. Don’t believe me? Try setting in a sleeve with a 1.5cm allowance and then doing it again with 1cm allowance and see if you notice a difference.

Also, it takes extra time to trim things down. For example, this step on the sleeve binding has you fold up by 1.5cm then trim down to 1cm. If you had a 1cm seam allowance in the first place you wouldn’t need to do it at all! 

Having said that I know some people prefer 1.5cm for security. For example in case you want to have wriggle room to let it out later (don’t forget to overlock your pieces separately if you do this).

McCalls 7969 specific comments 

An ode to gathering 

There is a LOT of gathering on this dress. A bit on the shoulders, a lot on the sleeve cuffs, a lot on the skirt (or peplum if you want to do a top). My top tips for gathering are on Instagram here. The trend for the last year or two seems to be all about gathers, and it doesn’t appear to be abating anytime soon ….

Top version of M7969

For this top I had 1.25m of the Merchant and Mills cotton hemp blend in colour sizzle – that was all that was left in the shop! So a dress wasn’t a possibility. I had thought about a skirt – in hindsight that might have been more versatile. But it’s not as if I have no other fabric to sew through.

Anyway I wanted a fabric with structure to show off the volume of the sleeves. The sleeve piece is around 70cm wide at the bottom for a size small, so it just fit when I cut on the fold. To be honest if I was making a larger size I probably would have reduced sleeve volume by a bit if it was too wide because this thing is a fabric chewer.

For the peplum, I used the skirt pattern piece cut on the fold. But I cut it at 23cm deep instead of the full skirt length. This includes a 2cm hem (simple double fold). However I didn’t have enough to cut the back piece of the peplum on the fold, so I have a seam in the centre back. Not ideal but not a dealbreaker. 

Sizing 

I made small with no modifications. If you want less volume on the sleeve you could use the slash and tape method. But I would not recommend sizing down, as the size of the armhole feels pretty fitted.

Fabric

In the picture below, you can see how this cotton hemp blend behaves a lot like poplin. Has structure, will hold shape. But I noticed it was also very tightly woven. If you look closely you can see where I did stitch in the ditch on the wrap. Normally, I would have hand-stitched it down on the wrong side for an invisible finish. But maybe because I am used to hand stitching mostly things like linen, after about 5 stitches I could already feel my hand would get sore. So I ended up machining everything.

Verdict

My friend commented that it could be taken in a bit at the waist where the peplum starts, and maybe less gathers on the peplum. I think she is right about the silhouette and I should have thought more about it than just literally just lopping off the skirt piece. Because the top is also extremely breezy. Let’s hope a gust of wind doesn’t hit me at the wrong angle and turn me into a flasher!

But overall, I’m pretty ok with this one. Is it worth the hype? Let’s say there are so many patterns right now that have big sleeves + gathering formula that will have a similar vibe. For me, that “vibe” is the idea of running barefoot through the countryside amongst the lavender and peonies whilst luxuriously swathed a ton of fabric in the form of dress with a giant skirt (is that what it is referred to as cottage core?) OK maybe my brain is running away with me there, but we are really spoilt for choice!

Finally, see the top in action here. It’s just me in my garden with a pair of jeans so hardly the picture I just imagined, but let me dream…..

Till next time

Kate x

Hi everyone, I’ve finished the rucksack. There are quite a few things that would be REALLY handy to know before I started that I thought I would blog about it and save another bag newbie some time and learn from my errors! For those thinking about making this bag or buying the kit, hopefully it all makes sense with the pictures but if you have any questions just shout.

So why this bag?

We went to Rye a few months back and mister spotted some bags on a stand at the Merchant and Mills store. He rarely likes anything in a store or asks me to make anything for him so when he announced loudly “I like this one. The navy. That exact fabric colour and type”… we know what happened.

The good:

• The Merchant and Mills aesthetic – I love it!!!
• You can buy a kit that comes with fabric, leather straps, buckles, rivets, a drawstring and the eyelets.
• The eyelets come with the setting tool (the rivets don’t).
• Sewing part is easy, just straight lines. But you can’t do all the sewing bits at once first and then all the leatherwork afterwards, or vice versa.
• Instruction pictures are clear.

Less good aspects:

• Expensive! £88 all up. I found a ready made one on a website for £75 and it looks better than mine. Also for the cross body version you will need some more hardware.
• Only 1 spare rivet pair. No setting tool for rivets (but see below)
• Instructions could have been better (words more comprehensive and explanatory). But if you take it slowly and read each step 10 times you will be ok.

Really good to know

• Additional tools were needed as well as a hammer. Luckily Artisan Leather has everything you could want in terms of bag making supplies.
  • • The kit comes with setting tools for eyelets (pic 1). This is different to the setter made by Prym which I have used before (pic 4). In my case the eyelets were a different size from my Pry ones so I used the M&M setter.
    • Leather punch – mine was £10 (pic 3 below)
    • Rivet setter (pic 2) so your rivets stay pretty and don’t get dented (don’t ask me how I know!) – £6.25 plus postage here. You can see the anvil (long piece) is slightly concave which really helps. Pic 7 has the unfortunate mangled rivets before I had the anvil, and pic 8 is the perfect rivets afterwards.
• Leatherwork:
  • I had leftover for the leather straps so I could test punch the holes. But I made the rucksack version and the cross body version I think needs a longer strap.
  • Double check the size of every hole before you punch, there is no going back.

•  Construction
  • Use a heavy duty needle (mine was for denim).
  • Before you topstitch the flap down – pin where the topstitching would go so you can check line is straight on the underside. I thought I had been precise with my measuring and stitching but apparently not enough and I topstitched over the lining because I couldn’t see the underside. I ended up omitting the whole line but this was decorative anyway so no worries in the end.

Design notes – Rucksack version

This rucksack will fit a spare outfit, bottle of water and a toothbrush if you are going out for the day. Or perhaps one night away and you are travelling light. I am sure you could get an iPad and phone charger in there too 🙂

What I like less is the lack of a proper base. The whole body of the bag is one piece folded in half then joined at the side. I have tried to show this in pic 6. Then the shoulder straps are riveted to the bottom corners of the bag. As this is only 2 layers of fabric I don’t know how strong it is.  I added a reinforcing piece of fabric as a precaution. Also, whilst there is a magnetic snap closure and drawstring (pic 5), to close the bag properly requires two straps that buckle on the front pockets which hold the top flap down (similar to a Cambridge Satchel). This is quite impractical and it is a faff to undo and redo two buckles plus a drawstring every time you want to take something out.

Overall

Mister likes his bag and as with clothing I have made for him, it will get wear simply because I made it. That is regardless of how bad or unflattering or impractical it is. But in the end that is all that matters right?

On the downside, this make took me a long time and I found not having the right tools and not knowing what I needed quite frustrating, so I youtubed a lot and read the instructions multiple times, e.g. how to set a rivet, how to install a magnetic snap. The sewing bit was no problem at all. I would not recommend this as a first fabric/leather bag project as there are 7 pieces of leather to deal with, numerous holes to punch and almost 20 rivets to set.

The other M&M kit for the oilskin Jack Tar bag looks a bit easier and I will probably get this at some stage after de-stressing from this bag. As well as loving the M&M aesthetic, I think it will make a nice alternative to my 2 medium sized Longchamp bags I have used in rotation for the last 5 years.

Hope that is helpful for anyone who is thinking about buying the kit or making it up. It has piqued my interest in bag making (who doesn’t like leather straps to jazz up fabric bags?!) and improving my total lack of skill with leather. I am so happy to have found Artisan Leathercraft for every supply needed for M&M bags. Onwards and upwards!