Rainbow brite x the big tent

Cruising the remnant piles at fabric stores, I picked up this vibrant-as-dart-frogs rainbow stripey fabric a few months ago thinking "oh! toddlers wear bright colors?!" and this weekend was the week to act on that impulse buy (because seriously...who buys fabric deliberately? Please see: my cupboard full of quilting cottons #don'twannatalkaboutit)

Abs has this adorable chambray dress I picked up at a holiday craft fair (#don'twannatalkaboutitx2) last year and I figured it was time to act on one of those "make a toddler dress tutorials" that promises all kinds of instruction yet offers none whatsoever. You know, the sort that says "take a dress you already have and trace it, then fashion that into your own dress and remember the right way to assemble a dress because you are already a sewing pro"? Familiar? Helpful?

Turns out, those are less helpful unless you are legit a sewing pro, but let me highlight some of the positive aspects and lessons-learned of poorly tracing a pattern off of an existing dress (without disassembling it because I paid good money for that chambray fantasy):

practice using the rolled hem foot

I rarely have a chance to use this scaled-down piece of evil, so it was good to experiment a little bit on her ruffled hems.

Lots of curses, but actually one of the better parts of this sewing expedition. 

This sewing machine foot (the rolled hem foot) is a pain in the ###, but this tutorial offered some assistance.

The near one is the first one...I like to think I got slightly better from one sleeve to the next. 

I should use some patterns with instructions

I had to approach and re-approach the ruffled sleeves a number of times. Why? Because my brain forgot the appropriate order for assembly and I stitched seams in the wrong order. e.g. stitching the bodice side before I attached the sleeves. What? It is like I wanted to rip seams. urg. So, I should sew some legit patterns to remind myself of viable vs. non-viable assembly sequences. 

ruffled sleeves, waiting for action.

Round three of "how tha heck do I make ruffles part of this dress?"

Toddler dresses are remarkably forgiving

Bodice doesn't fit? Who cares!? Dress is too long? Who can tell!? Baby girl moves so fast that you can scarcely see my error (of which, there are PLENTY.) I'm feeling more positive about making clothes for fast-moving blobs, place your orders now.

What baby?

I'm a big fan of my daughter

She's the best. Seriously.

P.S. Dress=success. Pleased to use remnants from Mishunky's playsuit; zipper is a little sloppy, but Abs isn't judgy. At least one of us isn't...

Peter Pan, the real deal

The muslin worked out pretty well! Once Abbie woke up I wrested her into her new art smock/asylum gear. She was into it.

Fit of the muslin

First studio assignment: Montage!

You can see there is a lot of extra room in the torso. Like, room enough for another baby. I ended up slimming down the body of the tunic so it didn't swallow her, and was also less likely to trip her up when she was crawling about.

The collar was splayed out a bit more than I wanted, though. In the final version, I made the slit less-deep than I did in the muslin (and then had to deepen it not once, nor twice, but THREE times for that big-headed blonde I call my daughter. Three times! Her head is so huge.)The demo muslin also allowed a bit of testing with the length. This version had a lot cut off of it, and I was able to knock off ~3 inches from the length on the final version.

Not bad!

Fabric Choice

I have a mish-mash of green fabrics that were all close-but-not-quite for Peter Pan...so I went off in a different direction! Leftover fabric from Jennifer's Easter Dress plus an overlay of green organza from wedding crafts (still!).

As a reminder, this is our end goal. I had nothing that looked like this for fabric.

Accessories

Hat

The Peter Pan hat is actually more-or-less the Robin Hood hat. This mix-up happened frequently! I used this Tikkido tutorial to guide my progress on the hat, though it was really back-of-the-envelope for drafting. It was made from the same fabric as the tunic, not felt, which was cute for the costume but slightly more difficult to get the shape right. Anyhow, I was really proud of the feather, which was some red skirt fabric cut to a feather shape, frayed to mimic the appearance of barbules, Fray-Checked, and starched to stiffness. The starching part didn't play out exactly as well as I hoped and the feather flopped like an amateur handshake when I was hoping for more of a veteran welder's handshake. You know, it isn't the worst/floppiest, but it could have been firmer.

Belt 

Something needs to cinch that tunic! I had hoped to affix a cardboard dagger to the outfit but ran out of time. Eh. Baby's shouldn't have knives anyways. There is not too much else that can be said about stitching a rectangle of fabric together to make a belt (leftover from this dress). Notably, it is made from the same fabric as the...

Moccasins 

Pretty proud of the moccasins because these were completely a shot in the dark. Really. I looked at some pics, sketched them out based on how long Abbie's foot is, cut and stitched, and they worked. Total Hail Mary.

but how did it look?

So cute! It looked SO cute.

Yep, poor little thing already has trouble keeping her can covered.

Agility!

More action! Plus a good shot of the feather.

Best. Peter Pan. Ever.

I kind of set the bar pretty high. I don't know if I'll ever be able to make another Halloween costume this cute, much less draft one from scratch. Heck, my costume this year suffered even because all of my creative energy was zapped to cute-up that baby. 

Dude. I am quite obviously a Roomba. Sheesh.

But what was probably the most fun part was using all those scraps. I love scrap busters. 

Since Halloween, I've been poking along tortoise-style on a Colette Violet in an incredibly loud plaid I've hoarded for years. All that is left is to finish the sleeves and bottom hem and pull the trigger on snaps or buttons and then I've got a shirt! And yet here I am, not hemming. *shakes head* Wish me luck.

Tiny Muslins--Abbie's Peter Pan costume

I have a forced sewing break right now since I finished the muslin for Abbie's Peter Pan costume and she is taking a nap. This is what has gone down so far...

This is my only weekend to sew Abbie's costume before Halloween since we are out of town next weekend, and I have to start from scratch. A sane, non-self-sabotaging person would buy a Peter Pan pattern if they wanted to make a costume, or for the love of everything download something so they aren't set up for failure.

You say using a pattern is easier than winging it?
Impossible!

NAY!

I actually did perform a quick scan of the kid patterns in my Ottobre stash but didn't find anything that matched my idea of a relatively easy-to-make shirtdress that could be a Peter Pan tunic. Which meant trying to draft something. Oh man.

Past attempts at drafting something from scratch have...not really happened. I kind-of copied a headband from another headband I owned and liked, but I think that is where my experience stops. By the way, that copied headband is mediocre at best. Hair is only partially kept out of my mouth.

 First: image searching.

Yep. That is Peter Pan.

Second: get distracted. Hey, I finally fixed my old grey jeans! And a pillow case that Wolfie partially ate ~2 years ago.

Third: Sketch and mentally map your sewing approach based on your fragmentary memory of making Chris shirts.

1. tops of bodice
2. attach sleeves
3. sides of bodice and sleeves
4. collar (make sure it is stabilized)
5. slash 3 1/8" down center front at neckline
6. should I have 4 and 5 before 3? Would that be easier? uhhh, forget it, stick with this order.
7. Wait, maybe that would be better? No. This is good.
8. Better add an inner neckline stabilizer between 4 and 5, or else it will look pretty rough.
9. Shoes? I can just swaddle her feet with brown fabric, right? She doesn't walk yet. Oh man, what if she is walking in two weeks? No, don't think about that.

Fourth: get distracted again. I'm hungry. This is the baby shirt/dress model for the drafting. It was my niece Stella's dress/shirt when she was wee.

 

 Fifth: draft, re-draft, re-re-draft.

Wolfie is helping. !!!

Also, I found a new purpose for the Sac Bee! Somewhat easier to work with than tissue paper, but dirtier too. Not to be used with delicate or light fabrics.
















Sixth: cut and stitch and consider pressing.

I hear some light squawks from the next room, Abbie may be up! time to put her in a shirt dress.

Next decision, fabric choice. I feel like I should do something absurd with that since you have that freedom with sewing. Not sure though...