Monday, September 9, 2013

Twirling Skirts– Second Edition

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It is neither easy nor cheap to find truly "spinny" dresses -as previously defined- in washable fabrics, so here are some examples of the ones I made for the girls this summer.

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I freely admit that I was not trying to photograph the dresses on this occasion. It was just a gorgeous night on Cape Cod and they happened to be dolled up. For the beach. Which is why it is great that these things are washable!

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Thacia's pink dress is quite plain apart from being washable and petticoated. It is another Butterick B5845 option, and the design and fit are really nice, just beware the whole 28 seam thing. It has no trim whatever except for the bow in the back, which is a point of a little young angst. I am informed that it would be much better with a bow in the front too. It seems that children need one bow to look at and one to sit on. The fabric is a cotton twill bottom weight. I had to make the skirt less voluminous than called for because I couldn't gather that much twill into the waist, but I tried valiantly if I do say so myself.

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Damaris' purple dress is made in an ikat stripe Guatemalan style fabric. It is almost a seersucker. The pattern is Simplicity 2265. The petals at the front and the way the stripes change direction around the lower edge were really great thoughts on the part of the pattern designer. That is what sold me on this dress! The rosette also turned out to be my favorite that I have tried thus far. However... 

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this is a Project Runway pattern dress and it wasn't professional at all. For instance, on the back placket it calls for zigzagging over the raw edge to finish it. Really? They couldn't give you 1/4" to turn under for a nice clean edge? There were several things like that. The pattern was confusing because in the name of giving you lots of choices they never pinned down exactly how much fabric and trim you would need. The design was good, the fit and the finishing were bad, kind of like it was designed by first semester fashion students. Yep. I went there.
But all's well that ends well.
The bonus of this dress is that the little pocket catches crumbs for my messy eater before the hit the floor. I should sew a ruffle to the front of all of their dresses right?

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