Summer/Fall "Dragon" Wardrobe

I've done more sewing in the last 15 days than I have in the last 15 weeks! I've posted pics of some of the wardrobe as I've gone along. Here it is, all together now that I finally, I got it done. 

It's all knits, but they vary a bit in type.  There are 3 nice cotton jerseys (though the magenta is a really heavy one).  The pink floral top is a slippery, poly blend with very little in the way of stretch. The dress is a lycra blend with lots of stretch in all directions, for a sporty feel, which makes a great play dress.
If you look carefully, you'll see that she posed her toy dragon for each different shot.  He was her "accessory".

 

Here is the composite, showing all 7 looks we got from the 5 items made.  I hope it all lasts her well into her next school year!

For information on sewing any of these, please check out my review HERE.

 

 This outfit seemed to bring out her inner Movie Star.

 

 Here she is simply having fun and playing with her favorite toy, Icy the Dragon.

 

This dress is certainly her favorite piece of the wardrobe (and she's happy to wear it alone or with leggings)

 I loved sewing this matching outfit of gathered sleeves and gathered leggings from the same pattern.  The fact that both of these fabrics were actually in my stash made me even happier!

She also really loves this top.  It's long sleeved, so will hopefully also serve her into winter and possibly even next spring!

 

 Here you can see the sleeve gather detail.

And here is the outer leg gather.  There is an inner leg gather as well.

 

So there it all is.  I'm really glad I took the time to do this for her, and I'm so happy there was a great contest out there to help inspire me when my sewing mojo was low!

Kids pick the darndest fabrics!

First off, I'd like to say how happy I am to be back at my sewing machine!  And with a new serger to use on knits, making Liz a 5 piece all knit wardrobe is proving to be fun AND a good learning experience with the new machine.

So you can see here the second fabric Liz picked out at Joanns. It's pretty crazy, but really pretty too.  There are lots of colors to mix and match in it, so it goes with a lot of other things.  I felt pretty lucky to have the magenta in my stash (thanks to my great aunt Barb!)  I have enough of it left (and more of this magenta solid too) to make one other item out of eventually.

I lengthened the sleeves and added a contrasting cuff so this will hopefully work well into fall and winter, but still be useful on the random cool summer days and evenings.

I also made the back leggings, another piece of fabric I've had in my stash from Aunt Barb.  These turned out great, and will be useful with so many things!  I expect she will get a LOT of wear out of them.  No, they aren't that exciting, but they are super practical for a girl who is suddenly into leggings with everything.

I was originally going to make the leggings in grey, and I still may do that, though I have a magenta pair (yes, THAT same magenta) already cut out.  You'd be surprised at how much of her existing wardrobe matches that bright magenta, lol.

Well, I'm off to cook dinner, and then back to my machine,  Yay!!

Summer knit dress, she loves dragons!

Here is Liz's new summer dress, part one of her Summer/Fall wardrobe I'm hoping to make her this month.

While out doing errands the other day, we stopped by Jo-anns to pick up some thread for another project, and I noticed they had a McCall's pattern sale.  I told Liz she could pick a pattern, and I would pick one for myself.  She selected McCall's 6915.
I realized I didn't have much in the way of knits in my stash, so and looked and saw their fun knits were on a good sale.  Liz picked 2 fabrics, one a purple and pink crinkle dye that she says looks like a dragon egg (looks like an Easter Egg at least.).  The other she selected is the crazy bird and floral pattern which will be my next project.

So she wanted the pink and purple made into the dress, and the other into a shirt.  I started with the dress, and saw that a previous reviewer mentioned it runs large.  I have about 4 yards of this plain grey knit, so I decided to put it to good use making a wearable muslin before cutting into the fancy fashion knit.

I'm so glad I did, the muslin was quite large.  Wearable, but wide in the body. 
After measuring the amount I needed to remove, I graded the pattern down to a size 2 in the shoulders, and 1 in the body.  The pattern only goes down to a 3, but I just kept going.
This meant I had to add a lot of length to the bodice, 2".  I left the skirt length at 6.  I think I should have added 3" to the bodice, and added another inch to the skirt.  The length is ok as it is, but I had to make a narrow hem to prevent it from being too short, and there is little room for her to grow taller in it.  Though one can always add ruffles, lol.

I didn't like the idea of the tied ribbon (it would just come off an active child), so I told her she could pick a knit trim.  Well, she picked this crazy sequin stuff because it looks like dragons scales to her, and has purple and pink in it to match the dress, and I do like the final effect.

She is so into dragons right now, this outfit may not look like it at first glance, but was entirely inspired by dragons, and mostly designed by Liz. :)

I finished hand sewing on the knit sequin trim early this evening, and we went outside to take pictures.  Ahh, summer.  Long afternoons, still warm and light outside at 7pm.

I think the back illustrates how much I improved the fit of the body.  That and the fact that she wanted to wear it to bed!  lol.  I had to tell her no (mostly because of the sequins in bed...seems less than comfy), but she can wear it as much as she wants in the daytime for the rest of the summer.

 

It's really good to be back to sewing.  Last month I started on a jacket for myself.  I got the base part assembled, but stopped at the point where I would start attaching the lining.  I think the heat killed my desire.  I hope to finish it next month though.  I hate UFO's.

But my spirits are really up, and I'm enjoying making this wardrobe for Liz.  I'm especially enjoying using my new serger!  I got it for Christmas but haven't had much opportunity to use it.  the next 5 projects are all knits, so it should get a lot of use.  I even broke a thread right after I started using it, and was able to re-thread it correctly!  That makes me feel much more comfortable with it, which is great because I'm still a little intimidated by sergers.

 

Here is my Pattern Review of the dress, for more technical sewing information.