Pirate of the Playground

A while back I posted about the "Pirate Girl" outfit I made for Miss G - she's all about being adventurous and brave and pirates pretty much fit the bill for that. And because Mr. T is so close in age to her, he usually wants to do whatever she does. So when I bought the pirate girl iron-on from Bunte Fabrics before it closed, I also bought a pirate boy and promised T that he could have a "Pirate Boy" outfit. I made the pants in August, not long before Aonghus was born. The shirt got finished in September and I figured I ought to blog them now before I forget to document them!

First up, the pants. I found this super cute medium-weight striped twill at JoAnn's a couple of years ago. At the time I'd thought of doing some cropped summer overalls for T. but I didn't get around to it. Then this year when I was planning his summer SWAP, I decided to make these part of it - sort of. They didn't really go with the general color scheme but he always has a blue or red t-shirt of some kind, so they'd fit into his wardrobe without necessarily needing the pirate shirt. The pants are from Ottobre 2/2005 and they are #23. I chose this pattern because the magazine actually showed the pants made up in a stripe fabric and it immediately reminded me of the twill that I already had. I wasn't sure about adding the knee patches, but decided to do it and used some dark denim from my stash. I used it for the faux pocket-flaps on the back, too. The pocket lining is a navy cotton with white stars. I used red topstitching thread for these pants so that it would pop against the navy knee patches. And although the pattern calls for rivets at the knees like commercially-made jeans have, I don't know where to find those locally or online, so I just did bar tacks at the corners.

The length of the pants makes them a perfect transition garment, for those early fall days when it starts out cooler but warms up enough by afternoon for the kids to want shorts. The elastic waist and faux-fly make them easy to put on and take off, which is nice when you're in a hurry to get into your bathing suit! This pattern is easy to make up but has enough details to make it more than just basic shorts. I'm definitely using it again in the summer.

The pirate boy shirt is Imke from the SCKL book. This version uses the straight-cut sleeve and the rounded, sporty hood. Gwyneth's has the pointy hood with the tassel. I used a red and white stripe cotton-lycra knit for the hood and lower sleeves and a medium weight navy cotton solid. It may have some lycra in it but I got it as a remnant so I don't recall. I didn't have enough of the stripe to do 2-layer sleeves, so these are single-layer sleeves made to look like 2-layer ones.

 On the right sleeve we have the skull and crossbones iron-on and pirate kid ribbon from Banberry Place; the left sleeve features a double ribbon trim, with blue and red star ribbon from Farbenmix on top of a navy grosgrain ribbon with red pick-stitching. Embellished, but not too girly.

Sleeve detail - right.

Sleeve detail - left.

As I said before, I made this shirt because I had the iron-on pirate boy. It looked great the first time T. wore the shirt, but then it lost a foot! Apparently the glue wasn't fully activated. Anyway, here's the look of the shirt-front, minus a pirate foot:

I'm trying to figure out a way to add a new foot that doesn't look too weird, so I'll post an update if/when I get to that.

Tales from the Sewing Crypt

It's Halloween-time again and that means that my sewing machine is going full-steam ahead. This year Maeve decided to wear her costume from last year, so I don't have to try to top that one! However, this year I have to make a costume for the baby (yes, I'm masochistic like that), as well as Miss G., T-bird and myself. Luckily, they should be fairly easy to do, with the exception of Miss G's.

Gwyneth decided that she wants to dress as Merida from the movie "Brave" this year. I've done several Disney princesses - Maeve was Cinderella and Snow White, as well as a sort-of Sleeping Beauty (the dress was pink, anyway). Anyway, I was kind of hoping that Gwyneth would opt for the Snow White costume this year and give me a break on costume sewing. Of course not. Merida is her favorite princess and I have to agree with her on that, since Merida is the one princess who doesn't end up falling for the prince at the end, and is actually the one who does the 'saving'. Tallon decided that if she was going to be Merida, he wanted to be one of her brothers the triplets.

At first I was hesitant but then I decided that this was a good idea. Normally I'm a stickler for authenticity when it comes to iconic costumes like the Disney ones, but I'm taking a different view this time. Here's why: there is plaid involved and a kilt. I could make a kilt, but it would be time-consuming and I wouldn't be able to find a plaid that was the same as the plaid in the movie. Since that's the case, I decided to go an easier route, unusual as that may be for me. Tallon already owns a kilt in our clan tartan and Gwyneth, Maeve and I have sashes in the same tartan. How easy is it to just have him wear our tartan? Then all I have to do is make a green shirt to go with it and I'll have to do very little sewing. I like this idea.

The Merida dress, however, is more difficult. We decided on this project before McCall's put out their Halloween patterns and apparently they have a 'licensed' Merida dress pattern. I personally don't like it that much and since it wasn't available, I scoured online pattern sources until I found a pattern that most closely resembled the dress from the movie - McCall's 5207, which is currently out of print. I got my copy on ebay and I'm sure there are several copies out there. The thing I like about this pattern is that it runs up into the larger girl sizes (12, 14) so I could make her another dress from this same pattern when she's older. To keep that option open, I traced the pattern pieces. I will be altering the sleeve construction to make it do what I want (not surprising) and I'm adding embroidery to the neckline and hem. Yes, I know that in the film Merida's dress is plain, but I'm not sticking to the authentic version, remember? Besides, I need to justify having the embroidery machine and this is a good reason. That and the dress will look that much better when it's finished. Lastly, I'm going to do hand-made eyelets on the back (it laces up!), rather than apply the metal eyelets which never stay properly, anyway. And it's a good excuse to practice making eyelets by hand.

Merida wig before haircut.

Accessory-wise, Gwyneth already has a Merida wig that she got for her birthday last year and I ordered a bow-and-arrow from the Disney store so it will look authentic. Mr. T is blonde and insisted on having a wig too, so I bought a cheap Merida wig from Party City and I've cut it down to look like a boy.

 

Here you can see the wig in the middle of the trimming process, after I'd cut off the long pieces at the back and on the sides. I was concerned that I would cut too much off and then I would have wasted $15 on the wig, so I went slow and only cut a bit at a time. The triplets in Brave are drawn with curly reddish hair that's short on the sides but the front bangs are puffy and stand up quite a bit, so I didn't want to cut too much from the front. The trick was getting it to not look too much like Merida with short hair. Here is the end result, from front, back and side:

 As you can see, I tried to make the back look as natural as possible, cutting it short but leaving enough that you can't see the wig base. I also needed it to look a little messy, otherwise the curls would look too girly. I think I managed to get a good balance. This wig was in the section for littler girls and I think it's a tad small for his head, but that's okay because that way the curls aren't too overwhelming. Overall it looks pretty close to the triplets' hair in the movie, but I think it's  best judged with the entire costume, and that will come next time.

Pajama Time!

It seems like my kids always run out of things that fit in stages that go by types of garment. Around Christmastime I realized that Mr. T was in desperate need of new pajamas. His old ones were all too small and I was reluctant to go out and buy new ones, given the vast stash of fabric in my storage room. So I got out a pile of knits and had him choose 3 prints to work with, for 3 new pairs of pajamas. He ended up choosing a print with dogs (some of which are blue) on yellow, a jungle print in green, aqua and brown, and - his absolute favorite - a "breakfast" print of eggs, bacon and toast. Breakfast-themed prints seem to be his thing; his favorite RTW t-shirt is a face whose eyes are fried eggs and whose mouth is a strip of bacon. Go figure.

I used my go-to pj pattern, the "Stripey Legs" pants and "Night Owl" shirt  (nos. 34 and 35) from the Winter 2009 issue of Ottobre. This issue is one of my favorites and I've made quite a few things from it by now. Since I wasn't sure if I'd have enough of the prints to do both the shirt and pants for each set, I decided to throw in a complementary stripe for each one: two-tones of blue rib knit for the dogs, green with white stripe interlock for the jungle print, and yellow and orange rib knit for the breakfast print. I used brown ribbing for the cuffs of the jungle and breakfast prints, and a cobalt blue ribbing for the dog print.

Crazy before bedtime.

I've made this pattern a couple of times and used a few different techniques to sew it together. The directions call for you to lap the seams and then sew them with "a flat lock stitch", by which I assume they mean a coverstitch. I don't have a serger that does a coverstitch so I've used the honeycomb stitch on my regular machine in the past and that's one they recommend in lieu of the coverstitch. I've also constructed them using regular seams and topstitching them. This time I decided to try a flatlock stitch on my serger, which gives a smooth seam on the inside and has the seam allowances on the outside. It worked out okay but I don't think I'd do it again, simply because the exterior seam allowances are a little bulkier than I'd like.

Jungle Jammies!

The other issue I came across this time is that, because I used the blue striped rib knit for the body of the shirt, the neckline was slightly bigger than I would have liked. Darn that rib knit! I should have stabilized the necklines before I sewed the binding on. It's not a glaring fit issue and it makes it easier for Mr. T to get the shirt on over his big head, but still.

All in all, a very successful week of sewing these. If only I could get in the sewing room more regularly! And if only I could remember to post about them in a more timely fashion! At least I was able to do them in a sort-of assembly line style. Using the brown for 2 pairs meant I didn't have to change thread for each set and that's always a time-saver.

Now he needs more pants. It never ends.

Ahoy, Matey!

So, my girl is not the girliest of girls. She likes pirates. I think she has a secret desire to be like Pippi Longstocking. Back in 2010, I made Miss G a pirate girl outfit for her birthday present. She's since outgrown that one and was begging me for a new one. Since the whole thing was based around a velour iron-on that I'd found at Bunte Fabrics it would have been a bit difficult, but for the fact that before Yvonne closed her shop, I managed to score another one, plus a boy version.

Left sleeve.

Right sleeve.

The shirt is basically the same as last time -  I used the Imke pattern from Sewing Clothes Kids Love and I made it in a faux 2-layer style, with the pointy version of the hood. The short-sleeves and the body of the shirt are a black rib knit and the sleeves and hood are red and white cotton-lycra - both left over from the previous shirt. Like last time, I managed to get a red velour pirate skull iron-on (plus one to go with the boy pirate for Mr. T) and that goes on the right short sleeve; the long sleeve has 2 layers of ribbon - the bottom layer is black grosgrain with white pick stitching and the top layer is light blue with red stars. The star one is from Farbenmix. On the left long sleeve is a stripe of pirate boys and girls ribbon that I got from Banberry Place; the short sleeve has iron-on stars of various sizes in a red holographic vinyl. The hood has a tassel of several different ribbons, including the stars ribbon and the pirates ribbon.

Ribbon tassel on the hood.

The previous pirate girl outfit had a skirt, made from black denim with embroidered skull-and-crossbones motifs in white. This time I opted for pants. I'd been wanting to make the Farbenmix Nonita pants pattern for a while - how can you not love a pant called 'piratenhosen' (pirate pants) by its' maker? I knew I didn't have enough of the denim from the skirt, so I found some stretch red denim and used that for the main fabric, with the embroidered black denim as accents. I like how they turned out, though the denim is pretty stiff; hopefully it'll get softer as it gets worn in. I really like the look of some of the topstitching done by others on these pants, so I tried to go for a similar look. I'm not entirely happy with the look but that's probably because I had to use doubled thread, since I didn't have white topstitching thread. Also, I don't know if I'd use the thicker thread for the more complicated stitch patterns on such a heavy fabric again. They probably would have been fine with a single thread.

Pirate pants- front.

Pocket on left leg and ribbon detail on cuff.

The other thing I had a problem with was fit, but my girl is so skinny that I'm kind of not surprised that the waist is a bit big on her. This is often the case with the Euro patterns when I make them for her. There's always a good amount of ease and sometimes I have to compensate for that. After one or two wears we decided to undo the waistband a tiny bit and redo the elastic. The fit is much better now. The buttons were the coolest part, since I discovered them by accident at JoAnn's. The pirate skulls appear to be printed on them, but I'm hoping they won't rub off in the wash.

Topstitching detail, skull and crossbones buttons, pirate ribbon and Farbenmix label.

 The pants look super cute with the cuffs rolled up, since that exposes the pirate denim on the underside. And they look great with boots, sneakers, clogs or pretty much any other shoe. Miss G. likes to wear her pirate print clogs with them. I kind of want to use this pattern to make pants for my son's pirate boy outfit, but I'm not sure the fit would be good for his body. I do think it will be fun to make another pair of these for G. in a lighter weight cotton for summer. First, though, I need to finish some other projects!

Stars and Stripes

Ideally, this post should have been written back in September, except I forgot about it. I mean, I do a lot of sewing but don't always end up documenting it as I go along or even right after I finish it. I'm working on changing that, but it's a process.

This outfit for Miss Gwyn (who else?) was actually her first day of school outfit, and I stayed up all night to finish it - literally. The birds were singing when I went to bed. Anyway, she had asked me for "an adventure skirt" and had chosen a star-print twill from JoAnn's. After perusing my Ottobre magazines I found the perfect pattern - #14 in the 1/2005 issue. It's a pretty quick and easy pattern but with a lot of topstitching. I used a yellow thread, since yellow is her favorite color.

She needed a top to go with it, so we went with the ever-popular Farbenmix Imke (or was it Antonia? I don't remember now!), with hood and short, puffed sleeves. The green and white striped knit I had in my stash, grabbed from the bargain table at G Street Fabrics in Rockville, MD back when we lived on the east coast. It was a huge piece, but at $2.97/yard you really can't go wrong, can you?

Shirt front detail.

Anyway, the green matches the green stars in the skirt perfectly but it's a bit plain, so we added some iron-on stars in red holographic foil and some Farbenmix ribbon. I'm not sure what the middle ribbon is called, but it's still available at the Farbenmix online shop. The other two both have stars - light blue with red and orange with red, also available at Farbenmix and at Banberry place, respectively. Because, you know, you can't have too many stars. The hood on this shirt is the pointy version, naturally, and it has a tassel of the 3 ribbons that I used on the front of the shirt. I like that these two pieces are easily worn separately - I think she's worn the skirt with a solid red shirt and the striped shirt goes with any jeans, so she doesn't always feel like she needs to keep them together as an outfit. I think that they'll fit well through the summer, but Miss G. has had a slight growth spurt lately, so it may not last into the next school year.

The "Patisserie" Dress

So around the beginning of the year, a friend posted on her FB page that she would hand make something for the first 5 people who commented on her post, and the catch was that you had to repost the offer. I commented because my friend, Christine, is always a crafty person and is also an amazing photographer. When we were in college she did pressed flowers for a bunch of us who were close friends with her and I still have mine, framed, in my sewing room.

When I reposted, I got replies from 4 friends quite quickly but was surprised that I didn't hear from my friend, Lindsey, since she's a fan of my sewing work. I made a baby quilt for her younger daughter last summer and she loves it. When I saw that she hadn't replied to the post about a free handmade something, I messaged her to see if she'd seen it. She hadn't, but she jumped at the chance and when I asked if she wanted something for the baby, she said that the quilt was enough but could I make something for her older daughter, BB, who is my Gwyneth's good friend. BB is a girly girl and I immediately started thinking about dresses - something she could wear in the summer but also in spring and fall with maybe a shirt underneath. I showed her the Feliz dress in the SCKL book and she loved it.  BB's favorite colors are pink and purple so I poked around on the Fashion Fabrics Club website to see what was available and came up with a pastel plaid chambray, a purple chambray, a pink striped shirting and some coordinating voiles. But when the fabrics came, I stopped being so enthusiastic about them. Normally I use some kind of a print as the main fabric and I'd planned to use the plaid as the lower ruffle on the under-dress, as well as some of the ruffles on the back and make the body of the under-dress from the striped pink shirting. I stopped liking that and decided that the way to go was with the plaid as the body of the under-dress. But then I started thinking about needing a smaller print to tie everything together - the plaid is good but bigger than I'd anticipated. I dug through my stash and somehow came up with a 1-yd. piece of pink abstract print of dots/egg shapes that had all the colors from the other fabrics. I can use this for the sash and as one of the ruffle fabrics. The purple chambray is the over-dress. But how to tie it all together?

The most famous French macarons. These colors inspired the theme of the dress.

BB is interested in all things French and I thought that the perfect way to embellish the plain fabric of the  over-dress was to embroider it. Suddenly a lightbulb came on for me - Huups.de has an embroidery set called 'Bonjour Paris', of a French girl with her dog, an Eiffel Tower, a pastry shop and the phrase "Paris, Je t'aime" (I love you, Paris).  And it's done by my favorite embroidery designer, Nic, of Luzia Pimpinella. If I changed up the color scheme from the original design of the embroidery to go with the dress colors, I could make a whole scene of the girl going to the pastry shop. Okay, technically the shop says 'confiserie', which means 'confectionary' and really refers to a place that makes desserts of various kinds (cakes, pastries, tartes, chocolates, ice cream) and not just a pastry shop. But, if you add some ribbons with cakes, cupcakes and ice cream cones in those same tones of French macarons and you get a pastry shop dress! So now I'm inspired. And also, hungry. However, the macarons can wait.


So the end product:

As you can see, the apron/overdress is the focal point. I wanted the "Paris, Je t'aime" to stand out so that the theme would be kind of obvious, so I went with a lighter color. White seemed too stark, hence the light pink. And the jade green for the Eiffel Tower letter 'A' is a good way to introduce that color, plus it links to the straps; I was afraid that doing the straps in the green would look odd but they bring a nice bit of contrast. And they look adorable with the dark pink rick-rack at the edges - that part reminds me of the lace paper doilies that some pastry shops use.

I wanted to set up the street scene at the bottom in such a way that there was an Eiffel Tower in the background, but I realized that it was going to be too heavy after I finished the pastry shop, simply due to the amount of embroidery on a dress this size. So I moved the Eiffel Tower to the back of one of the side panels, which kind of gives the feel that Paris is all around and ties the theme to the back of the dress.

The back of the dress involved adding ruffles and ribbon - normally not something that is too difficult, just time-consuming. That and with this dress it has to be done before sewing the dress pieces together, so it seems like it's taking forever to finish. Surprisingly, this was more difficult than I anticipated, since I had to figure out how to incorporate the ribbons in a way that made sense and didn't look like I'd just thrown a bunch of ribbon at the dress.

The wide cake ribbon posed a problem due to its width, but I made it work, though I ended up using far less of it than I anticipated. At first I'd thought I would simply serge the raw edges of the ruffles and, after gathering them, sew them so that the serged edge would be under the ruffle, the topstitched so that it wouldn't show. I soon realized that the green voile was far too thin for that and that the plaid ruffles would have been too heavy done that way. Instead, I stitched the ruffles with the raw edges facing up, then added ribbons on top of the raw edges.

This not only serves as a way to finish/conceal the raw edge but also adds a nice surprise underneath. That's what I did with the cake ribbon, though I only used it on the green ruffles, since using it on all of the ruffles would have been a little too much. Even cakes should be taken in moderation.

To make the other ribbons stand out, I chose the lavender with the ice cream cones for the yellow seersucker ruffles and used the yellow ribbon with the cupcakes on the purple chambray ruffles. You know, contrast colors and all that. The purple chambray is topped with pale pink ribbon and the yellow seersucker got a yellow one, though I wish I'd had a darker pink on hand and maybe a greenish color for the yellow, just to make it more interesting.

I'd contemplated using the multicolored abstract dot print as the bottom ruffle but it seemed to work against the plaid of the dress, so instead I used an embroidered pink voile, very similar in color to the rick-rack that I used on the straps and on the jade green ruffles. 

When I brought the dress to her, BB. immediately tried it on and declared it her new favorite dress, which is always a good feeling. I so enjoy making things for people and it really makes me happy when they like it this much. I made a size 122/128, which is a little roomy on her right now but that means she'll be able to wear it that much longer. When I left her she was still spinning in it every now and then, just to see it twirl.

Roses are red, violets are blue...

When I think of violets, I think of spring and even though it's really winter, I couldn't resist the call of this fabric. Actually, I'd sort of been planning this outfit since about June, but then I got sick, and we moved, and it just didn't happen. I finally had some time in September to do the shirt and skirt and then made the leggings in November. And of course, I'm just now getting around to blogging about it.

I'd been dying to do the Laguna skirt and leggings by Studio Tantrum. I love Nancy's patterns because they are truly unique. I mean, this is a simple circle skirt but it's made by cutting the circle into spirals and then sewing them together. I don't think I'd be able to come up with something like that in a million years, particularly since it probably requires math and that's really not my strong suit. Anyway, I got the pattern from Banberry Place a while ago and had intended to make it for Maeve but suddenly she grew too big for the pattern. So I left it for a bit and then, this past spring I was going through my fabrics to look for something when I spotted the floral printed poplins next to each other and said to myself, "Hey, those would make a great pairing in a skirt." The Laguna popped into my head and that was it. I wanted to do a shirt with it and knew that Gwyn likes the Farbenmix Antonia quite a bit, but I wasn't sure of the fabrics. Then I got sick, etc. and it got put off.

The fabrics here were all already in my stash, which means I didn't have to buy anything for this particular garment, though I will say that the smaller floral was something that I'd gotten about 5 years ago but didn't have any plans for at the time. The larger floral is a Baby Nay poplin that I got on ebay about 5 years ago, too. I'd already used a good portion of it to make a Farbenmix Sasha dress for Maeve and really had to work hard to squeeze the skirt out of the piece I had left. The waistband is a bit of Stenzo poplin left over from the Delft dresses I made the girls 2 years ago.

I finished the hems with two different colors of ric-rac, which was no mean feat, since I went through 2 packages of each color of rid-rac to do it. I like the effect, though. Of course, I added the label that came with the pattern, because how could I not? Gwyn thought it looked like a mommy owl and her baby, and since she loves owls.... And see the blue flowers? Those are the violets.

On to the shirt - a double-sleeved version of Antonia with the keyhole:

The rose print that makes up the front and back plus the shorter sleeves is a beautiful Stenzo cotton-lycra knit that I got from Yvonne at the now-defunct Bunte Fabrics. Hence the roses in the title. The sleeves are a blue and white gingham-print cotton-lycra knit that I got from The Fabric Fairy during a sale. The neck binding is simply some dark pink ribbing I had on hand.Then, naturally, there are the extras, since this shirt is for Miss Gwyn.

I love freebies, don't you? Well I got the pink decorative elastic as a freebie with a fabric order at some point, and I jumped at the chance to use it on this shirt. The ribbon on the left sleeve came to me as a freebie when I ordered some ribbon from Farbenmix directly. It was basically a leftover from a roll and all I had was enough to use on this sleeve. You can buy it here.

The rest of the left sleeve features a round patch with a rose on it. This one I bought 5 years ago in Germany - it cost me 1 euro, I think, and it goes perfectly with the roses in the ribbon. Finally, the trim at the hem of the long sleeve is a blue and white decorative elastic that was also a freebie.

The right sleeve has the same pink decorative elastic at the short sleeve hem and the same blue at the long sleeve hem. The difference is the red and white dot Farbenmix ribbon and the Farbenmix tag, naturally. Since the weather isn't exactly warm enough to wear the skirt without tights, I also made up a pair of leggings with the Laguna pattern. These are made from a cotton-lycra knit in aqua-blue and raspberry stripe from The Fabric Fairy. I highly recommend this knit - the recovery is great and the fabric is super soft. As a whole, I love this outfit but she can also wear these separately, so that's a bonus. It's currently a favorite in the rotation and she even calls it her "Roses are Red, Violets are Blue outfit".

Adventure Down the Rabbit Hole, Pt. 2 - Alice

I was planning on starting my Wonderland costume extravaganza with the Queen of Hearts, but that would mean that I need my oldest to be able to drop what she's doing every couple of minutes so that I can fit the muslin of the dress bodice and she's been inundated with homework. Ah, the travails of middle schoolers! Since she wasn't really available, I moved on to the Alice costume, since I knew it would require a bit of hand work for the hems and lining, and I like to have hand sewing to do whilst the small ones are at gymnastics and I sit in the bleachers, watching them.

I made a few alterations to this pattern to make it look the way that I wanted, but not a lot. The only change I made to the dress was the addition of a collar. There are many Alice patterns out there and the one I wanted had a dress with a collar and a separate pinafore. That one wasn't available at my local JoAnn's at the time, so I went with this one:

As you can see, this dress doesn't have a collar and the pinafore is not a separate piece. This pattern actually calls for the bib to be sewn directly to the bodice, with the apron skirt being a separate piece, sewn to a ribbon and then tied around the waist. I knew my Gwyneth was not about to go for that, since she is a stickler for authenticity as much as I am. I recalled a shirt in one of my back issues of Ottobre which has a similar collar and traced that out, but when I tried to see how it would fit with the dress neckline, it was clear that it wasn't going to work. So I skimmed through some other issues with the vague notion that there was a dress with a peter pan collar in one and, to my delight, found this dress:

I traced off the collar piece and added giant seam allowances. Normally I use a 1cm seam allowance with Europeans patterns, but the dress pattern had standard 5/8" seams, so I used that width in order to keep everything the same. The first try didn't work when I tried to attach it to the dress - the curve was too deep for it to lie properly. So I cut off the entire seam allowance and re-pinned it and found that it was the perfect size. Thank goodness, because I didn't have enough of the blue to make another one and was reluctant to go buy more. A make it work moment that worked out.

The pinafore was a different story. First, I curved the neckline slightly and used the size 7-8 for the bib. I wanted the bib to be in front and in back, so I cut 4 pieces and sewed the shoulders together in pairs, then stitched them together along the outer edges. Next I turned them right side out and used bias tape to bind the neckline. Unfortunately for me, the bias tape is slightly yellower in color than the bib of the pinafore, but I didn't notice that until I had sewn it on all the way. It really looked white when held next to the bib, so I'm not sure why there is that subtle color difference. Anyway, I used the pattern piece to cut the correct length of apron but I used the entire width of my fabric in order to make the apron skirt fuller. This was important to me, since the skirt of the dress is really quite full and I felt that the narrower width looked kind of skimpy against it. I gathered the top edge, then sewed narrow hems at the sides.

The pattern calls for a wide ribbon but my kids like their Halloween costumes to be dress-up clothing, and that means they get washed. Ribbons don't launder well, so I made a waist tie out of the same white muslin as the apron skirt and bib. I interfaced the portion that would be sewn to the skirt and bib, then sewed the skirt to one side and the bib to the other. I kind of just made it up as I went along, though I did use the pattern pieces as a guide.

All in all, a highly successful costume, in my opinion. The thing that was great about this one was that it did require a little bit of hand finishing, which allowed me to have some sewing to do while I watch the kids at gymnastics. I hate sitting there with nothing to do and I always feel like I'm wasting time that could be spent in front of my machine. Now that Alice is done, I'm moving on to the Red Queen. I lucked out, because Maeve is getting big enough that I don't have to do as many alterations to the adult-sized pattern in order to make it fit her, so I can pretty much just start cutting out. But I'll talk about that in a different post.