6 Ways To Style McCalls 7445 For OWOP

This is the second time that I’ve joined in with the Instagram challenge called “One Week One Pattern” (OWOP), which is hosted by the lovely Sheona of the brilliant online store called Sewisfaction that sells a good range of fabrics and haberdashery and also hosts sewing classes.

The idea of the challenge each year, (which actually ran from November 26th through December 2nd) is to show the different ways in which a sewing pattern can be styled or modified or changed up with different fabric choices etc. You could have just one skirt that you’ve made and show how versatile it could be with the ways that you style it throughout the week, or you could have several dresses in plains, stripes and florals for instance. The choice is entirely up to the individual as to how you approach the week-long challenge. You could even sew several new garments throughout the week if that’s your jam…

Last year my pattern choice was my basic fitted trouser block. I showcased the different ways that I’d adapted my pattern and the different fabrics that I’d used. If you fancy a look the OWOP blog post is here.

So this time around I indulged my continuing love affair with the culottes/wide leg cropped trouser trend and I used pattern number 7445 by McCalls designed by the very talented Melissa Watson. It’s a great pattern that also includes fit advice within the instructions.

Have you noticed how the line between culottes and what some designers call cropped wide-leg trousers becomes a little blurred? Sometimes I’m not sure what they should be called so I did a quick bit of research and it seems that the word culottes originates from the French word Culotte which means a pair of panties, pants, trousers, shorts or (historically) Breeches. See Wikipedia here and The Costume Society here for lots more interesting facts.

I like the interesting and sometimes challenging proportions of the wide cropped silhouette and I’ve become braver with trying out more options for styling it. OWOP was the obvious time to delve a bit deeper.

I’ve actually made McCalls 7445 three times already. The first pair is made in a rust coloured stretch wool blend fabric that I’d had in my stash for many, many years and they kind of became my wearable muslin because in subsequent versions I tweaked the crotch fit quite a bit for my flat butt. 

The second pair is in a lovely grey pinstriped stretch wool that I picked up from Ditto Fabrics a couple of years ago.

The third pair is a modified full-length version in a gorgeous Italian wool from * Minerva Crafts. 

My original plan was to style the first three pairs differently over 6 days and to make up a fourth cropped pair during the week for day 7.

Well, you know what happens to plans, don’t you? Yup, you guessed it….they end up going astray!

You see, strangely I was extraordinarily more organised than usual and I had had a big try on session beforehand. I’d planned all of my outfits for the entire week and I’d even taken photos up front….however a couple of days before OWOP was to start I got a virus, followed rapidly by the most horrid tension and sinus migraine which lasted over two days. As a consequence, I spent the first two days of OWOP either in bed or on the sofa in front of Netflix feeling decidedly sorry for myself.

In view of me getting totally lurgy-fied (yes, that’s a word!) we’re just going to have to pretend that I did actually wear outfits 1 and 2 as planned…I won’t tell if you don’t 🙂

So, without further ado, though, here are my 6 outfits:

6 Ways To Style McCalls 7445 For OWOP

Outfit One: 

My Olive knit drapey neck sweater and Reiker boots  bought 18 months ago from * Rubbersole

Outfit Two:

Full-length modification, seen here and my self-drafted ivory sweater seen in various posts but never officially blogged. Pikolinos boots from * Zalando bought about 3 years ago

Outfit Three:

Grey pinstriped version worn with my RTW fringed sweater bought from *New Look about 18 months ago and my black Lamica knee-high boots bought from Zalando (link as above) two years ago.

Outfit Four:

Full length version again, but this time worn with my cropped boxy top seen here and the same Rieker boots as above

Outfit Five:

The rust culottes again, with my black Lamica boots (as above) and my favourite RTW animal print sweater by Biba bought from * House of Fraser last year

Outfit Six:

My coral boxy top again worn with my grey pinstriped culottes/trousers and my Reiker boots. To top this outfit I wore a very old memade green utility style jacket which is an old favourite (sorry forgot to get a proper pic of it)

And here are a couple of bonus outerwear shots too so that you can see how I look when I’m out and about. The weather wasn’t overly cold so I mostl chose my trusty trench coats. The Ivory one is memade and the Olive green one is old RTW by * Next

• 

• 

• 

• 

It’s a shame I didn’t get to finish the week properly but I really enjoyed thinking up outfit combos plus different coats and footwear options. To be honest it really helped me to make better use of my wardrobe and I feel more confident at styling my culottes. I can also think of lots more possible outfits as well. Once I got started the ideas kept coming.

As I write this though, the fourth pair of McCalls 7445 is almost finished in some fabric that coincidentally came from Sewisfaction. Oh, I forgot to say that I actually won one of the prizes in OWOP last year and that prize was a voucher to spend online at Sewisfaction, so I bought two lengths of fabric. One was the gorgeous wool/poly blend coating that I made up in Butterick 6244 and the other was a lovely stretch Rio crepe in a mahogany/burgundy shade which I’m using for my final OWOP make…It’s a great fabric to sew and I’ll be sharing all of the details and photos with you in my next blog post so do stay tuned for that, won’t you? I’ll be sharing how I stitched a part lining into my make that didn’t add bulk at the pocket area, so you may find it useful.

So that’s it for this week. I hope you enjoyed my styling roundup. Catch you next week with those elusive crepe culottes. Bye!

****Disclaimer: This post contains some affiliate links. This means that I may make a small commission at no cost to you if you click through and purchase something that I link to. You can read my full disclosure policy here (thank you for supporting Dream Cut Sew )

Pin For Later