top of page
  • Writer's pictureA

Bee-Line Dress

Updated: Jan 8, 2023

So I meant to keep working on the Bliaut, but the weather outside was screaming for a sundress, and I couldn't bear to work on something that heavy. Instead I made my far-too-frequent pilgrimage to Joann's for a new sundress. I scoped out all the clearance fabrics, but nothing appealed to me, so I went to the Quilting Cottons (The Quilter's Showcase fabrics are usually right in my budget, and since they are intended to work together the color matching is amazing). I looked at some generic floral prints that I really wanted to like, but they didn't quite suit me. Then I noticed the flowers with the bees and the hexagon fabric. I don't know what the designers were thinking when they designed that fabric, but with the perfect color match to the bees all I could see was a honeycomb!

The colors are a little washed out, but here are images of the fabrics straight from the website.


I decided to pair them with M6741 View A so that I could have the contrast band with the honeycomb at the bottom. I also quickly decided to replace the inseam pockets with hexagonal contrast patch pockets.




To make the pockets I first measured my phone - I knew that I wanted the pockets to be big enough to hold it. I picked one hexagon to be my center, and measured out about 4 inches, which happened to be about 5 hexagons. I cut 4 of them out by following the design on the fabric, and arranged them so that my center would be a peach hexagon to help tie it back into the peach of the main fabric of the dress. With wrong sides together I machine-stitched 5 1/2 of the sides together, turned them right-side out, and hand-stitched the remaining half side with an invisible stitch. In an effort to strengthen the pockets and decrease stretching I placed their grains on an angle from one another. I top-stitched the pockets onto the dress using a zipper foot on 4 of the 6 sides. Yes, my phone fits inside :)

Close-up of one of the pockets.


The pattern is on the cheap side. It does not use any interfacing, and rather than a facing it recommends fully lining the dress. For a project like this, a full lining is just a waste of fabric, especially when I want a cool dress for a hot day. Instead of a full lining I cut an extra set of each piece of the body of the dress, but only cut to the waistline. Once the dress was assembled I ran a zig-zag stitch along the bottom of the lining to keep it from fraying while creating less bulk than a full hem would have done. I purchased an extra yard of my peach fabric for the lining instead of getting a separate lining fabric or the full 2-3 yards recommended by the pattern.


The lack of interfacing also means that the neckline doesn't stay up. This works out for the best since when I hold the finished garment up to me it almost cuts into my neck, but I'd rather have a reinforced neck with a slightly lower profile. That is one change that I'd definitely make if I tried this pattern again. I also can't imaging that any of the other necklines in this pattern hold their shape without at least a little interfacing.


On the model the dress falls just above the knees, but it falls well below my knees. I know I'm on the short side, but c'mon. Unless you're tall you're probably going to have a good bit of hemming to get it above the knee. I was concerned that if I hemmed too much I would loose too much of my contrast to make it worth including, so I kept my hem longer than usual on this one.


The finished dress!


Material: 2 7/8 yard Coral Bee Fabric ($10.32) + 1 1/2 yard Hexagon Contrast ($5.39)

Pattern: McCall's M6741 ($1.99)

Notions: Matching thread ($.80), Invisible Zipper ($4.99)

Hours to complete: 10

First worn: Sitting around the house to avoid the virus last Saturday

Total cost: $23.49+tax


Recent Posts

See All
bottom of page