Skip to main content

A Little of This, A Little of That: Coming Up With a Fall Dress

My older daughter is 10 years old now. That puts her in the "tween" age category. When trying to come up with sewing plans for her, I felt a bit stumped. This is new territory. Combining her preferences, my "guidelines" (leggings are not pants!), and this new age category in a successful way is a challenge. We talked through some options together and looked at fabrics together and we have a bit of a plan. This dress was the first part of the plan.


We had an idea of what the dress should look like and then combined a couple different Ottobre patterns to get what we wanted. There was a fair bit of basting and fitting as we went and in the end, we both think it was successful.


She picked out the fabric - a purple pique knit. It's pretty stretchy with very good recovery, so it wasn't too difficult to handle. The black trim is a cotton/lycra jersey. I added the keyhole at the front neckline for interest. The binding was done on my sewing machine with a double needle. First I zigzagged the binding to the neckline, then turned it to the back and topstitched with the double needle. I trimmed off the extra on the inside close to the stitching line. The zigzagging and double needle stitching both allow plenty of stretch for getting this on without a zipper or button closure.


My initial plan was to have this ruched waist piece sit on top of the dress and just be attached at the side seams. However, I made an error in tracing the skirt pattern and the front piece was two inches shorter than the back piece. I didn't want a short skirt on this dress, so I decided to insert the back piece to gain back some of the length. It worked well enough.


The bodice back piece is a bit too long and she gets some pooling above the inset piece. Not enough to make any changes on this dress, but it's something I might watch for in the future.


She would like for the skirt to be fuller. She's a big fan of the circle skirt. I'm not such a big fan of buying enough fabric for a circle skirt.

We're both happy with this dress and I think our first real foray into tween clothing was successful. The Oliver + S blog has been doing a series about tween style (specifically related to their patterns) and I've been enjoying following it and picking up some inspiration.

Comments

  1. Tween sewing is definitely tricky. Your daughter's dress looks great.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Excellent! Love the look. I agree with Tracy . . . "tween" sewing is tricky.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cute dress, and very age appropriate. The color look wonderful on her

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Grocery Bags

More gifts! These are just like the still-all-too-ubiquitous plastic grocery bags, but they're fabric.  I followed this tutorial and you actually use a plastic bag as a pattern.  The instructions are very good and include a pocket so that the bag can be folded up and is easy to keep in a purse or a car's glove box. Mostly for the sake of the gift recipients, here's how to fold up the bag.... 1.  Lay the bag pocket side down and fold it length-wise using the edges of the pocket as a guide. 2.  Fold it in half, aligning the top of the handles with the bottom of the bag. 3.  Fold in half again and then reach into pocket with your hand and turn the whole thing (pocket included) inside out. Happy shopping!

Shopping Bags

Most stores in our town charge you a nickel for a plastic bag when you check out. I love this practice and the way that it encourages people to bring their own cloth bags or reuse their plastic ones. My habit of bringing along bags to the grocery store is well established, but I used to find myself stuck at places like the drug store or farmer's market or other impromptu stops. Then I picked up a bag at an upscale kitchen goods store that rolls up quite compactly. Now I keep that in my purse, so I always have a bag with me. I like my bag so much that I wanted to replicate it for the art sale. The final result is a hybrid of the bag I purchased and these that I made last year. The bag is a little bigger than the average plastic grocery bag. The velcro tab is used to keep the bag rolled up, but also can close the top of the bag when it is full. Most of the bag is a single layer of cotton, but the handles are faced. There is a double row of top-stitching around both edges of

The Burda Skirt Again

I'm not sure what prompted it, but awhile ago I decided that I needed a green skirt. The last time I was at Fabricland I saw this green wide-wale corduroy. I wasn't really looking for the skirt to be corduroy and the color was a little different than I was hoping for, but since I had my eyes peeled for awhile and hadn't seen anything better, I thought I'd try the corduroy. After looking for a suitable pattern, I settled on the Burda 2/2010 skirt that I've already used three times . Because of the weight and bulk of the corduroy, I didn't want to try to mess with too many details. I'll use another skirt pattern soon. Really, I will. One of the things I really like about this pattern is the pockets. This time I made the pocket facings and part of the pocket bag out of a cotton woven solid to reduce bulk. Since I'll be wearing this skirt with tights I added a lining. Adding the lining was really simple except that I cut the lining exactly the sam