Tuesday 18 November 2014

Field Trip Dress


Before too much time elapses, I want to blog about the jersey dress I made during the KCW challenge last month. After the time consuming Hopscotch skirt project, I wanted a speedy project to balance things out and make the week a victorious one!


Pattern:

I got the idea from the image above that I found on Marina - Big Sewing Box's awesome kids clothes Pinterest board. The caption read 'Inspiration for dress from Field Trip raglan tee pattern', and I remembered that I have the size 12-18 months of that Oliver + S pattern (pictured below) traced out from when I taught it as a class at the Village Haberdashery earlier this year. 


I cut the main pattern pieces for the t-shirt and added a simple skirt section. To do that I cut a rectangle of fabric, stitched it along one side to form a loop, then attached it to the hem of the t-shirt with little pleats, eyeballing them to make them as even as possible. I made the rectangle as large as I could with the fabric I had left after cutting the body of the dress, so that dictated how full the skirt ended up being. 

Aside from adding the skirt, the one other change I made to the pattern was to cut the neck hole 1cm wider all the way round. I don't think Dolores has got a particularly big head, but I wanted to err on the side of caution as she hates having garments that are a bit tight pulled over her head. 


Fabric:

I was lucky to have been given both the blue polka dot jersey and the cute farm print jersey by Jenna, in her generous haul of children's sewing stuff. They were too awesome to be left to sit in Le Stash for eons, so I'm pleased that both got used with very little but the teensiest scraps left over. They are great quality jersey (you'll have to ask her for the original source) and were a pleasure to sew with.  


Thoughts:

I'm really pleased with how this garment came together. It all seemed pretty serendipitous: seeing that image on Pinterest, realising I had her current size already traced in that pattern and finding I had just enough of these awesome jerseys to make it. This dress is currently a bit too big for her, but that is ace because it means plenty of use can be extracted from it! The idea of adding a simple gathered skirt to the bottom of basic jersey top patterns has made me look at the patterns in my copies of the kid's Ottobre magazines in a different light.

I struggled to get a modelled picture because of the murky lighting. This is the best I could manage:


8 comments:

MrsC (Maryanne) said...

Oh she is the poppiest of little poppets! I love her looking so intent on her wee bike, in such a lovely dress!

stitchynotions said...

Aw,so cute, you are giving me ideas for my wee niece. I have two teenage boys so lovely when there's a little girl to sew for. Also love seeing your posts about your finds in charity shops etc. You have done well with those.

Jo H. said...

Oh goodness what a darling! Such a brilliant dress, all comfy and bright!

Lana Pugh said...

At least she's wearing it and not screaming! I bought a beautiful black and white eyelet ladies small dress at Easter. I cut the skirt off and made a beautiful pillowcase dress for my little girl to wear to church. She hated it. Hated it to the point she was crying and begging me to take it off. She ended up wearing another simpler jersey dress her MawMaw had given her for her birthday. Super cute dress and give me an idea of something to make for my Allie that she might actually like!

Isa García-Onlylola said...

Lovely!

110 Creations said...

I can't tell you how many times I've added a skirt like this, it's great! I highly recommend using your pattern to repurpose tshirts. I've made a lot of raglan dresses that way, using the hem of the tshirt for the skirt portion. SO easy!

Anonymous said...

The yellow fabric is from Lillestoff - they actually have alot of very cute kids prints and just started a "womens" range that looks great too. All of their fabric is GOTS too. It is quite pricey (it retales at around 18,50 €/m in Germany) but the quality is heavenly. They don't fade, they don't pill and are great to sew with.

Nice dresses :-) I love this sort of garment because it fits for a really long time - first as a dress later as a tunic and if the arms are long enough (or if not you could just cut them to short sleeves) even as a tee.

Greets from Germany,
Susanne

JustSewJenna said...

Awwww, she's lovely! I'm so pleased you used the fabric, Elodie has a dress made from it too and she loves it! I bought it from http://kitschycoo.bigcartel.com but I can't remember where the dots came from.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...