DIY: McCall’s M7188 Princess Seam Dress with Piping

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McCall’s M7188 is a dress with princess seaming and a lined bodice. I sewed this out of a navy rayon twill fabric with a turquoise, white, and red floral print. This was the first time I used piping, so that was a learning curve for me. Some of the piping is not 100% straight but that’s not enough to keep me from wearing this dress!

I made M7188 in view C , since I wanted sleeves (so I could potentially wear this dress to work) and wanted to learn how to insert piping. I just used store bought piping, but the only piping that Fabricland had that would have matched was white, black, navy, or red. As you can see, I ended up using the red since I wanted an eye-catching hit of colour.

I lengthened the bodice by 2.5 cm, as some reviews I read said that the midriff part was rather higher up on the torso than what I wanted. Now that I see it, I think this dress would look great with piping on the bottom of the midriff as well, for more waist definition. I am quite happy with the fit, since I made a size 16 with a D cup without any other alterations. That’s the beauty of this M7188 pattern – the full bust adjustment is already done! Inserting the neckband with piping was rather tricky, but I was able to do it without too much unpicking.

I would make this dress again but in a heavier fabric. The rayon twill I used ended up being rather thin which gave me some difficulty getting the structure of the bodice right. Plus, my old sewing pins would snag the threads in the fabric, which ended up in small white ‘runs’ in the dark fabric. Time for some new pins!