My second daughter is on the large side and has a little bit of an awkward shape, with a sticky out tummy and a curved back. This means that finding clothes that fit her properly is a bit of a struggle. Summer school dresses, you know, the gingham ones, are especially hard. They are often drop waist or cut on the waist, while my daughter needs A-line or empire line. So I decided to make her one.
Of course I found it pretty much impossible to find a suitable pattern, because all the A-line dresses are for small children, and my daughter is young, but big and tall and needs older girl dresses. Soooooo, I decided to copy a dress that she has that does fit and make it in the green gingham of her school uniform.
Right...
Easy peasy, right?
Well, I started off OK by collecting a selection of "Dresses That Fit".
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The Dresses That Fit. |
I traced, cut the traced bit in half and put it on the fold to get a symmetrical dress. I actually cut two exactly the same pieces and then pinned them and put them on my daughter to find out how much lower the neck line has to be at the front.
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Like so. |
Then I realised that this is not stretchy material and she wont get the dress over her head. I contemplated a zip, but have no zipper foot. I considered a few buttons at the top, but that requires a bodice and skirt and I wanted A-line. So I then had a sudden flash of inspiration and cut the front piece in half and decided to make it button down; all the way down. I fashioned button stands (or whatever you call the bit where I will put the buttons) from 2 strips of fabric that I put some fusable interfacing on. And attached them bias binding style. The result was shoddy. So shoddy in fact that I couldn't bear to take a picture. I needed to hide the mismatched squares. Then I had another flash of inspiration: trim! Lacy trim! That will hide any wonky seams and mismatching squares. So I went to buy several meters of the stuff and the end result is this. I managed to have a fat and thin side, but once the buttons are done up, no one will notice. I hope anyway...
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The lacy trim pinned on. Looking good! |
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Hmmmm, uneven edges... |
So next were the sleeves. I have never, EVER, put in sleeves. I copied the pattern of a random other sleeve on a child dress pattern I have. Got my Great British Sewing Bee book out and had a little read on how to ease the shoulders of a sleeve. Then I pinned it all together and went for it. The gathers may not be in the same place in each sleeve, but I'm pretty proud of these sleeves! They fit! They look like actual sleeves!
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An actual sleeve! |
Now the dress looks like this. I need to make some bias binding to trim the neckline and sleeves, hem the dress and put in the button holes and buttons. My daughter has also requested pockets, so I will also make a couple of those. I may even make a little applique of some sorts to liven the dress up a little, you never know...
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The dress as it is now. |
So watch this space for the bit announcement of the finished Experimental School Dress!
Love
B