At the moment I'm doing my best to go through my scraps and see what can is big enough to be used to make garments, so expect to see lots of projects coming up using familiar looking fabric. Today's projects have not actually been made from scraps but are an example of me being very good and cutting out two garments from the same piece of fabric to make sure that there aren't any scraps.
First is a little dress for Cassie, made using Butterick 6115. I'm going to say upfront that I'm not overly pleased with this one. Of course Cassie looks cute in it (how could she not!) but if I do make her another one I'll need to make a fair few changes to the pattern. I'm not entirely sure why I'm surprised about this seeing as the dresses on the pattern envelope also look pretty terrible.
The neckband is far too wide and looks stretched out and gapey, making the whole thing look a little bit too homemade for my liking. Cassie's is a bit too short too and I think this is possibly because it's a little too short in the bodice, which also fits her strangely. All in all these are not particularly difficult problems to fix, but I'm lazy so I may just try a different pattern in future.
Naturally none of these little niggles bother Miss Cassie, the first time she wore it she was over the moon and kept spinning round and round to watch the skirt flare out. I'd nearly finished it the previous evening before she went to bed and had promised her she could wear it the next day. Due to the law of Sod I the spent the rest of the evening dealing with Felicity who was refusing to go to sleep and I ended up sewing the hem at 7am the next morning in between stuffing breakfast in my face and getting ready for work. I didn't have time to hem the sleeves, but it's jersey so it wasn't too much of a problem. I've done it now and Cassie would never have known the difference.
The second project this time was for me. I had enough fabric for a long sleeved t-shirt and I used Simplicity 1325, which I bought for the dress (blogged
here) with no intention of ever making any of the other views. This was a really simple project, I mainly ignored the instructions because I can sew up a t-shirt with my eyes shut these days. Unfortunately I should have paid attention to the bit where the seam allowance for the neckband was smaller than everywhere else. Oops.
Other than that I should probably have chosen the next size up, I won't be wearing it on it's own, but it's perfectly fine for wearing as an underneath layer. My intention is to make a purple version of the dress on the envelope and to wear this underneath, so I'm happy.
Coming soon: Matching fleece hoodies for Lissy and her baby cousin (still not born, be patient Auntie Hannah!) and matching sweaters for the girls.
