KCW Spring (Autumn!) 2014: Days 5&6

After making so many pairs of Playtime leggings it was time to make the dress!

I'd read in the Oliver + S forums that the dress tends to run a bit large, so I chose a size 2 width with size 3 length. The fabric is a stretch cotton poplin from The Fabric Store.

The dress has a really cute faux collar done with topstitching. I used Heidi's trick (seen here) and used two threads through the same needle to get enough oomph for the topstitching.

The topstitching continues around the back and down the placket:

And the in-seam pockets are also outlined with topstitching.

What pockets Mum? I can't find them!

Oh, there they are!

Found them!! Look mum!

Perhaps inseam pockets on a three-year-old's dress aren't such a good idea after all!

My casual approach to fabric cutting has continued (those Weekend Getaway blouses bled me of all cutting patience) and I realised after cutting this dress that the little flowers are probably upside down. Unless of course they're hanging from a vine. That would do as an answer should the kids pick up on my error.

Odd that the only dress this week not to get a matching pair of Playtime leggings was the Playtime dress itself. But it does get a matching cardigan:

This is pattern "j" from Let's Go Out Girl's Clothes. I found the fabric by chance as I walked past a big, city fabric store that was closing down and everything was half price. I didn't know what the fabric was and it was a bit thin for this jacket. It was priced at $30/metre and felt like wool, I guessed the price probably suggested wool. I bought one metre for $15 and then went home and threw it in the wash. That confirmed it was definitely wool as it came out of the wash half the size and twice as thick! It wasn't intentional, I'm just a very lazy laundry person and so I pre-treat fabrics as I intend to treat them for the rest of their lives (which can be very short obviously!). Anyway, now it was perfectly thick for a little jacket!

The pattern is super simple; a set in sleeve, and then the binding around the neckline that becomes the ties. The pattern showed a neat illustration for sewing a gathering stitch inside the front curved seam allowance to help turn the hem nicely. This could be my first "miss' of the week as it was worn happily for pictures but then taken off. The dress however, was declared to be "perfect for a ballet mum to take her ballet kids to ballet school"

...and off she went with a Puffin and a Pig in a pram!