May Flowers Dress

It's not May yet, but we're dreaming of May flowers!

For the last week of Project Run & Play, the theme is "Spring Formal Wear." I wanted a dress for my daughter that had a little extra pizazz so that it could be worn to church or a party, but would not be too dressy to wear any day of the week (gotta get some use out of it, right?)

The pattern I used was the Maggie Mae Dress by Shwin&Shwin and I stuck right to it (not altering a thing) and finished with a beautiful spring dress!

I cut a size 5 (I have this sizing-up addiction so that whatever I make can be worn longer) and I feel like it's true to size. I've found that some patterns seem to run small, but Shwin&Shwin's patterns always seem to be right on target (like this, this, this and this.) So the 5 is definitely big on my little girl (she wears a 4T these days), but I still love the look and will enjoy seeing her in this dress all spring and summer.

And for the pizazz? I chose three sparkly vintage buttons in my stash to glam it up a bit.

The pattern calls for pleats in the front and in the back and I found this alternative to gathering quite refreshing. I think pleats also dress up the, er, dress quite a bit too!

Can you tell my daughter loves the pockets?

(That and the Swedish fish swimming around in there.)

I used the same kelly green pinwale corduroy that I used on my Fox Jacket, which gives the dress a nice structure and a bit more formality. And the flowery print is quilting cotton. Both are from Joann's.

After a while, we got a little silly...
 
Here's hoping that May flowers are around the corner...

 

...along with plenty of use for this May Flowers Dress!

Thanks for reading and for stopping by! You can find many more beautiful Spring looks at Project Run & Play.

I'm also linking up with these parties.

Jumper with Fun Pocket

Do you have any favorite clothes from childhood? Sometimes I wonder which pieces my kids will remember. Which ones they'll wear over and over so much that they become emblazoned in family photos and, consequently, never forgotten. And then which ones they'll hold onto in their memories as loved simply because that's what they were. (Perhaps it'll be something I made??).

I, myself, have fond memories of a little dress from my childhood that my mom made me (which I didn't realize until I asked her about it and she said she made it!). And it had a pocket with a little Sesame Street Ernie inside, attached to a string. I LOVED Sesame Street as a kid.

This past summer, we had a live animal show at our local library, and when asked what her favorite animal was, my daughter said, "Turtle!"

Huh.

So when I finally found a jumper tutorial I liked, I wanted to add a pocket and hopefully sew something that my daughter would love. So why not include her favorite animal?

Here she is, Ms. Turtle. I made her out of minky fabric from last year's Christmas-fabric stash.

So she's got a weird back leg (and a dromedary hump). Get over it. She's one-of-a-kind.

It's funny because after I made this dress for my daughter, my son decided he, too, wanted some animal(s) to pop out of his overalls' pocket (you can kind of see him in the picture below, sporting his overalls and reaching out, enviously). I said, sure, what do you want? His response? "Poison dart frogs." Um, do YOU know what those look like? Let me direct you to the August 2007 issue of Ranger Rick magazine (thank you, freecycle). Yes, well, I am not going to show you my blue and yellow felt frog, nor my red and yellow felt frog. At least he's happy.

Now back to the turtle jumper. Yes, this one I like. And my daughter now refers to it (fondly?) as her "turtle dress."(Sigh.)
If you, too, want to make a fun jumper and add your own unique critter, check out the tutorial HERE. Enjoy!

PS: The fabric is thick, heavy corduroy, also from a generous freecyler. At first, I didn't like it so much, but now in dress form? I'm kind of in love.

A Dress Experiment

This project turned into more of an experiment than anything. As in, what can I get away with? I started with this beautiful and simple corduroy. I really liked it when I was at Joann's so I bought a little (eh-hem). It is soft, lightweight, and, I thought, perfect for the fall. At the time, I had no idea what I was going to do with it. Enter the commercial pattern -- Butterick 3047 -- that I bought on a whim off eBay for about $3 shipped. Because I am impetuous and not a sewing perfectionist, I started cutting right away, excited about the probability of improvising. Because, you know, I didn't buy enough fabric. 

 Quickly, I realized I didn't have enough corduroy for those long-sleeves I really wanted to make. So I lined the bodice (with pink cotton) and made side-seam pockets (because they're fun to find) and got used to the idea that I'd be making another sleeveless dress. (And I also started realizing that these type of dresses are all so similar with their bodices and gathered skirts. All you have to do to make them different is play with the neckline and the seem -- front or back, buttons or, in my case eyelets.)

The pattern called for buttons. And I should've just gone with it. But for some reason, I thought this bodice was going to be too small on my daughter (I used the size 3 pattern). So I punched holes (a fun technique I had never done before) and thought I'd lace up the front with a ribbon like a corset. Well, I tried this and it didn't look so great with only 6 holes. So I made felt bows. The top one snaps off to allow the dress to fit over my daughter's largish head. (It ended up being close.) I am thinking about going back to the lacing-up-the-front idea and cutting off those felt bows. (sigh) I will have to punch more eyelets though. As much fun as it was initially, I am not excited about doing any more when I thought I was officially done with this dress.

I should also note that the dress is all-over too big. I added an elastic waistband inside the gathered seam to pull in the dress a bit. I think it helped - a bit.

My "photo shoot" was very low-key. I didn't even change her socks (actually her brother's). She's donning a short-sleeve shirt beneath this dress, but I want to say, on record, that I envision a long-sleeved shirt beneath it in the future. We were just not going to wrestle today. I'm just glad she likes it. This version, anyway.

And so there we have it. My first completed (sort of) project for KCWC.