I apologize for the low-light, bad photos, but it's snowing like gangbusters outside and it's the best I could do. Here are the first two items of Daughter's Summer 2010 wardrobe:
ladybug dress
floral dress with contrast facings/bottom band
This is a great pattern. It turns out my kid actually has pretty strong opinions where her clothing is concerned, and has been asking for more dresses/jumpers that have "straps, and buttons on the shoulders." Unfortunately she has outgrown the New Look pattern I used for several years to make button-shoulder jumpers. This year we got lucky and found Simplicity 5489 (on sale for 99 cents, awww yeah). The only differences between the old and new patterns are rounded shoulder straps instead of square, and the bias band at the bottom. The construction, however, is exactly the same. I barely glanced at the instructions, just enough to confirm the steps, and I was able to whip these out during naptimes over the past couple of days. I would say this pattern is good for an advanced beginner.
The ladybug fabric was a special request from Daughter - I made her one with the old pattern in that exact fabric (but I can't find it on the blog, and frankly this blog is an emotional landmine for me so I stopped searching for it). I wanted to do a contrast band of red pindot at the bottom but Daughter insisted it be made entirely of the ladybug print. I had 1 yard + 15 inches, which is all we could get, and the pattern calls for 1 yard of the main print and 3/4 yard of the contrast. I did some seriously creative cutting to get the bias band. Then, to hide the seam, I stitched on some vintage black ric-rac from my grandma's stash. The buttons are also ladybugs.
The floral dress was a result of my WalMart fabric run the other day. I didn't know how much to buy, so I went with 1 yard of each print, figuring I could make something out of that. I love how it came out - I used the stripe for the facings as well as the bias band and the pale green color looks really pretty on Daughter. She is having a serious love affair with ric-rac and has asked me to put it on just about everything - in this case it functions nicely to separate the two prints.
I'm going to ballpark it and say each dress cost about $3. The buttons and trim were from stash, and the interfacing (at 63 cents per yard) adds a negligible amount. I generally shoot for less than $5 per homemade item if I can do it, so these qualify as frugal in my book.
I'd love to sew something else right away, but the weekend will be spent knitting up an Etsy order. Hopefully I'll be back to working up Summer clothing next week...I am desperate for sunshine and warmth to return!
6 comments:
Very cute!
I love little girls clothing. I noticed that there is a smaller selection of boys patterns and fabric, at least at my local fabric supplier.
Can't wait to see what you make next.
There are so many reasons to love those basic jumpers. I haven't made one in awhile because B just doesn't seem to grow out of them. When they're too short we make them tunic tops. So awesome. The fabrics you used are adorable!
I bet you're loving being stuck in this weather in the new house rather than the old!
Shari, yes, it is much harder to sew for boys!
Karen, yes, much better in this house but still booooooring after so many snowy, cold weeks. And we do the same with these jumpers, wearing them until they are unreasonably small. That is the reason for the re-run on the ladybug fabric. She loved that one best, so we made it again.
You need to bring Daughter to Idaho so she can play with Miss April's rick rack collection. ;)
Love what you made for her - it's inspiring me to get an early start into a summer wardrobe.
Hooray for a new similar pattern! My girls have outgrown all their old jumpers and I was going to go hunting for a larger size in the same concept. Thanks for saving me the legwork! :)
Also, thanks for your last couple posts. They got me motivated to get on some projects for summer clothes, specifically ones that would reuse old stuff. I'm now up to my eyeballs in skirts pieced together from all the old jeans the girls have worn out. I actually had 20 pairs of little girl jeans with holes in the knees! I now have five skirts in the works and they look adorable so far.! I'm sure I'll post pics when I'm done.
Love all your project pictures!!
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