McCall's 6319 Jersey Dress

Here in Hong Kong we recently got a hint of Spring and I was inspired to whip up a warm weather dress. Although this was super quick and easy to make, alas our mini Spring was over before the dress was finished. Still, for once in my sewing life I am ahead of the game and ready for some sun!

This was a popular pattern last year - McCall's 6319 a knit dress pattern with pleats and neckline variations. I made view A but without the exposed shoulder zipper - I do really like that detail but I didn't have anything suitable in my stash and I just wanted to get on with it, you know?

Here is the finished dress, it's in a sort of aqua / turquoise ITY jersey from Fabric.com.  

(With purchased pewter snakeskin print belt from Armani Exchange)

The pattern calls for a lined bodice which I decided was unnecessary - of course then I had to figure out how to finish the edges.  I decided to apply a strip of binding to the right side of the neck and arm edges which is then understitched, turned in and topstitched with a twin needle.  I had cut the binding much wider than I needed to which made it easier to handle and then just trimmed the excess close to the stitching.  

I remembered as I was doing a sleeve to take some photos if my explanation makes no sense!

Armhole from right side after sewing facing strip (in the flat, before the side seams were sewn) and understitching to the seam allowances

Same as the above but from the wrong side

Fold facing strip to wrong side and hem with twin needle right side up

From the wrong side, the excess facing strip is trimmed off close to the stitching line

I don't know if I stretched the neckline a bit unevenly doing this (maybe all that stitching is just too much, sure looks neat though!) or if the one shoulder pleats and lack of lining support affect the drape, but my neckline does have some extra wrinkles on it and seems to hang a bit lopsided, and it looks even more obvious now I see these photos.  Oh well, since it is asymmetric anyway I am hoping I can get away with it as unpicking anything does not appeal and would probably make it worse!  

Also, the pleats at the skirt and neckline are quite subtle, if I make this again I would like to make them a bit more exaggerated - does anyone have any suggestions how I would do that - slash and spread and make the pleats deeper / add more of them?