In last Monday’s post, you heard about how, even I — a very experienced doll clothes sewing enthusiast — struggled to understand the wording “… stitching back ‘Hemlines’ from top as far as lower ends of tucks” in the McCall’s doll clothes pattern 8531 for Mattel’s vintage Francie dolls.

I also learned that the estimate in the pattern for how much fabric you would need to create a fully pintucked upper section of the dress didn’t even come close to how much fabric I really needed! In fact, I recommend doubling the pattern size they give you before you mark your pintuck lines.

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So needless to say, McCall’s 8531 for Francie started off with some really big challenges. If you’re new to sewing, and you want to try McCall’s 8531, I recommend starting with a different outfit than the one pictured in View A.

If you’re more experienced, even if you’ve never created pintucks before, you may be able to create a lovely View A dress for your vintage Francie doll by reading through some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way. If I were you, I’d go back to Monday’s blog post to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes I did, and then return to today’s post to see what else I’ve learned from this project.

In the image above, you can see how I drew even more pintuck lines on a second piece of yellow fabric, attaching this new piece onto the one I’d already been pintucking since the start.

I was surprised to discover that the pintucks gave elasticity to the fabric. It wasn’t like Spandex or anything that stretchy, but it was no longer stiff, like 100% cotton typically is (and yes, I was using 100% cotton). In the image below, you can see that the pintucks were creating a lovely ruffle at the bottom of the fabric (Figure 1).

When I got that much pintucking done (Figure 1), I decided I was probably supposed to have hemmed the skirt part of the garment before I did the pintucks. I was thinking, That might be what the instructions meant when they suggested that I should be “… stitching back ‘Hemlines’ from top as far as lower ends of tucks.” They were just talking about an ordinary hem, right?

I pinned my pattern over the top of the pintucks, but I also knew that the back closure would need hemmed. So if you look closely at Figure 2 (above), you’ll notice on the right-hand side of my hand-drawn pattern, there are no pintucks. That leaves a bit of open fabric for the dress’s back closure.

About this time, I started wondering how I was going to hem the neckline and sleeves. I went back to the instruction sheet. In Figure 3, you can see that they had not intended for me to hem the skirt first. So I still hadn’t figured out the mysterious wording about hemlines. And then, have a look at Figure 4 up there. Do you see what they wanted me to do?

Yeah–NOPE. After pintucking all that fabric, there was no way I was going to get it to lay flat by just clipping and sewing it down. Not gonna happen! After all those pintucks, the fabric was thicker than heavy corduroy! It was NOT going to fold like that. Never in a million years.

So I came up with my own plan.

In Figure 5, you can see that I used my traced pattern to create a lining for the bodice, which seemed like a much more reasonable way to get the collar and arm holes to lay flat. See the pink chalk pintuck lines on this adapted bodice lining? After I had done enough pintucks to make the whole dress pattern fit over my pin tucks, I had a little leftover fabric, so I used that to cut my lining.

Another possibility that I thought of was the use of a quarter-inch double-fold bias tape binding to finish the neckline and arm holes. Hindsight being 20/20, I think the bias tape would have created a better finished product. It might have left me with less bulk around the neckline and armholes. I can’t be sure, but that’s kind of what I’m thinking.

In Figure 6, you’ll see that I’ve sewn some eyelet onto the bottom of my bodice lining. The instructions asked me to sew it directly into the dress, but that would have left a weird topstitch running lengthwise across the bottom of the pintucks on the outside/right side. So again, I ignored the instructions and did my own thing.

In Figure 7, you’ll see that I’m sewing the bodice lining to the dress at the back closure where the neckline meets the back closure. I also attached the lining to the dress at each armhole and around the neck at the front of the dress. Then I clipped my seams before flipping the bodice lining right side out.

I sewed the dress together at the shoulders (see Figure 8 above), so the only thing left to do was to hem the bottom, finish hemming the lower half of the back closure, and decide on a method to seal the dress shut in the back.

I added six snaps to the back, double what the pattern and instructions suggested. Because, well… Seriously? Only three snaps? That seemed a little ridiculous for a dress this size.

In my assessment of McCall’s 8531 — now granted, I had only made the View A dress so far, but — I had decided, already, that there was a very good reason why this pattern was super rare and hard to find online. I’m thinking nobody bought this pattern because it was really, really hard to follow the directions!

With the snaps attached to the thing, though, I was now ready to try it on Francie.

Now that it’s done, I think I should have used a longer swatch of pre-gathered eyelet lace for the petticoat. Or maybe I should have designed my own gathered petticoat, as a separate garment, to go underneath the whole thing. The eyelet swatch was only an inch and a half wide and four inches long, so I don’t think it really makes the skirt any fuller.

On the whole, though, the dress is cute enough. I think kids will want to play with it. In fact, a friend of my husband’s brought his 7 or 8 year old daughter over the other day, and it was the first dress his little girl wanted to try on my dolls.

So it definitely has some play-with-able value, even though it’s a bit bulky around the neck and armholes.

Question: What are your thoughts on McCall’s 8531 for Francie? Which of the outfits looks easiest/hardest from the pattern? And do you have any tips to add, when it comes to pin tucks? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

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