Monday, April 25, 2011

Sweetling Refashioned Summer Outfit: Dress Section Completed

After working diligently for the last week with whatever spare time I could fine (and several nights of staying up too late and getting up too early), I completed the Summer outfit's dress.  I was going to try to rush through the jacket, but decided better not to.  The first entry of this outfit, which shows the original romber this dress is made from is HERE.

I made several changes to the pattern I was using given the limitted amount of cloth and how I wanted the dress to look.  The skirt is just long rectangles, eeking as much useable material from the original romper's larger leg pieces.  I didn't have enough for the fullness I had hoped ot achieve, so I dug around to find some extra cotton cloth that could act as a panel.  I figured white or pale pink, though I nearly ended up using a bright yellow when I couldn't find my stash of plain cotton broadcloths.  Luckily, I looked in one last bin that I uncovered just before I started laying out the yellow, and behold!  My pale pink cotton!

Unfortunately, the pink cotton was quite a bit thinner than the romper cloth, which would probably not cease to bother me.  I decided to double the cotton and embroider the pieces together, using the block-stamp design of the romper cloth as my guide.  The pink cotton was thin enough that I traced the design on one panel.  After the two pieces were embroidered together, the heaviness/thickness was perfect.

Hand embroidered front skirt panel.
A few other changes I made were that I added a gathered ruffle (three LONG pieces of pink cotton folded over for a nice puffy ruffle) and had a center seem in the back which allowed me to not bother with the extra steps the pattern called for.  (If I do make this pattern again, which I plan to, and do it with new fabric or a long piece, I may try following the pattern instructions word for word, just to see how different it would turn out.)  Of course, as can be seen, I also added a flower, which was free and slightly damaged in the center.  No worries there for me, since I was going to pop off the plastic center anyways.  :-)

To show fullness, the skirt is over her Bumbo Seat.
 Most of the time I used to make this dress was spent unpicking the original romper, figuring out how I was going to lay out the pattern and what alterations were necessary or desired, and then hand embroidering the front panels together.  The rest was fast and easy.  The dress is a little loose, which is exactly what I wanted so that she can continue wearing it for at least part of the summer.

Criss-cross back.
Though I have the jacket, hat, and diaper cover to make for this (the hat and diaper cover will be in the pale pink cotton), I am going to have to take a break from this outfit to make something for my son.  I'm hoping to make him something to wear to the Maryland Faery Festival, but am uncertain as to what.  After that, I jump back into finishing off the jacket and then the additional two pieces.  :-)

She was so sleepy.  :-)

The flower was perfect; the center is a sparkly button that matches the ones in the back.


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