April Sewing

A recent trip to Texas netted some fabric that was turned into a dress for grand-daughter Hannah. She is 14 about to turn 15 this month and fits a size 12 pattern perfectly. I don't understand these bloggers who make size 4 or 6 for themselves when they can't possibly measure that small. I mean Hannah is a very slender teenager and her measurements put her exactly into a size 12. I know that some patterns have more ease than others, but generally I have found that they are in the ballpark and only require minimal tweaking to make them fit well.

                                               
The pattern for this dress is Butterick 6331; it has a vintage look to it and could be a little too cute, but hopefully she will wear it. I am making the same pattern again in a soft printed chambray, that version will be collarless and sleeveless plus it will have the full skirt. So it will look more like a sun-dress.
I figure that since version 1 fit her so well, that I should make a second version right away before she grows. The only changes I made to the pattern were to bring the neckline in slightly (it looked very wide to me) and I took in the side seams 1/4" directly under the arms to eliminate gaping there.

Second version of Butterick 6331 in a lovely printed denim chambray. Instead of gathering the skirt, I pleated it so that it would not be a full waist. Very few people feel comfortable in a gathered waist I find. Pleats give you the exact same circumference in the skirt but the fullness is controlled at the waistline.

These two fabrics will be made into a tiered dress for grand-daughter Sarah who is five, but a very tall five. The pattern is Simplicity 2377, which I picked up at Joanne's in Texas. Simplicity patterns aren't sold in Canada any longer. The reason given is that they don't print the instructions in French and Canada insists on all products being sold in the two official languages. Stupid I say, as the percentage of people who speak French in Canada is not that great. There are probably more people who speak Chinese than speak French now.

I will make her a size 7, as she is growing like a weed. She is already wearing Hannah's old clothes from when Hannah was 8 years old. I had the plaid in my stash and picked up the batik pink quilting cotton to coordinate with it. Sarah's favourite colour of course is pink, as is the case for most little girls.

And the yellowy cotton above is going to be a gardening blouse for me, using Vogue 8689.  My daughter in Texas made this pattern up for her very first sewing project and it looked great. She made it first in a cotton/linen blend, then again in a cotton lawn print. She said the second version looked like scrubs so she took off the sleeves and bound the armholes. And that blouse looks wonderful. She ties the ends in a knot and wears it with a very cute heart-printed blue denim.

I also bought three fabrics from Blackbird Fabrics last week. One is a stretch twill in tan to make into pants, and there are two lengths for summer blouses. One is a double gauze in navy that I think will be very interesting to work with.