My kids' birthdays are ridiculously close together. In fact, their special days are only one day apart. To date, our family more or less treats the situation like they're twins that are three years apart, and the celebrations kind of overlap and get all smooshed together. I guess this will change as they get bigger when their friendship groups get more defined and separate, and perhaps as soon as next year the events will be more distinct. I also feel that the clock is ticking for how long I can get away with making them matching clothes! To make the most of this fleeting opportunity, I decided to make these coordinating garments for them to wear as they turned eight and five.
Fabric:
When I first laid eyes on this fun emoji print viscose lawn from Fabric Godmother, I knew I had to get some for my kids. To be honest, I rarely buy fabric to make clothes for my kids. I mainly use leftovers from other projects and fabric harvested from existing garments when making things for them, with the occasional new purchase or gifted length that's more specifically 'kiddie'. I love how this print is more subtle than a fabric designed for kids though. In fact my colleague Kerry has also bought some to make a dress for herself. Full disclosure: this is not a paid ad or freebie, I bought this fabric myself but with a staff discount.
The fabric is lovely, but as with most viscose fabrics, it's light-weight, slippery and a big fan of developing creases. Having decided to make Frankie a shirt and Lola a dress, I knew I'd be pushing the limit of fabric suitability for the styles I had in mind with this fabric selection. I think I just about got away with it though!
(image source: Tadah! Patterns)
Dress Pattern:
I'll start with Lola's dress. Around the time that I was gearing up to buy the fabric, I was contacted via Instagram by Sewing Gem, a UK-based online sewing shop, asking if I'd like to try out a pattern by Tadah! Patterns, an Aussie brand that they stock and were hoping to promote. It was an obligation-free offer, and the timing was just right considering I was on the hunt for a pattern to make a part dress. When I looked through their selection of Tadah! Patterns, I clocked the Tea Party Dress pattern (pictured above) straight away as one that I've had on my Pinterest board for years.
(image source: Tadah! Patterns)
In essence, it's a fairly traditional fitted bodice-and-full skirt dress style. However, it includes a crazy amount of style options (see above). It allows you to make a ton of different looking garments all from the one pattern. I let Lola choose her own style variations. She selected the V-neck, classic back (she was going to be wearing this in October after all!), regular arm height, gathered cap sleeve and circle skirt options.
The pattern is graded between 6-12 months to 8 years. Lola is a touch larger than the measurements that correspond with the size 8, so I lengthened both the bodice and skirt by about 5cm each (also so she'll be able to get more use from it as she gets bigger still). I also made the bodice a tiny bit wider at the centre front and back. I wish I'd had this pattern from when she was much smaller so I could have made many more garments from it over the years!
The construction was pretty simple and suitable for someone who has made a few other garments previously, particularly if you choose to make it in a more stable fabric. The bodice is fully lined and back fastens with buttons, which makes this a slightly more time consuming project, so I wouldn't recommend making it the same day your child is due to attend a party! The only part of this project that gave me pause was trying to work out whether the top edge of the circle skirt should be gathered into the bottom of the bodice, or if it should be sewn flat. The instructions mention creating gathers, however the illustrations look like it should be sewn flat with no gathers (spoiler alert: it should have gathers).
For future versions, I would also prefer to make the bodice and skirt separately and the join them at the waist seam, instead of attaching the skirt pieces to the front and back bodice pieces and THEN stitching the side seams in one. But that's just a preference of construction order and wouldn't change the look of the finish garment particularly.
(image source: Fibre Mood)
Shirt Pattern:
I love making shirts for Frankie, and mercifully he enjoys wearing them also! I recently made him a shirt using my regular little-boy shirt pattern with a camp collar, so I was on the look out for something different this time. I found the Rupert shirt pattern (pictured above) in Edition 14 of the Fibre Mood magazine, but you can also buy it separately here. It's got a different silhouette and collar to the others I made for Frankie so decided it was worth the tracing out for some variety!
I ended up combining sizes for this garment to prevent it being too wide. I used the size 4 for the width and size 5 for length. I altered the sleeve pattern so it wouldn't have the turn up because I didn't want to reverse of the viscose to be visible. I also made a regular hem instead of the facing around the bottom edge because I felt the latter wouldn't be suitable for the slinky viscose. I also added two pockets to the front rather than one upon Frankie's request.
With the bottom hem facing eliminated, this shirt was pretty quick to put together. I like the look of the collarless neckline, and the wider fit is a nice variation to Frankie's current clothing selection.
Thoughts:
My main conclusion is: viscose isn't the ideal fibre for making kids clothes, but it is do-able! Both kids seem to enjoy the slinkiness of the fabric in their respective garments, even if I don't enjoy the ironing! They both chose to wear these garments multiple times over their extended birthday celebrations, and I've put them aside for a month so they'll be in decent enough condition to wear to a wedding in December.
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