KCW MidPoint

The plan was to post this yesterday.  The plan was to have two outfits finished and ready to photograph by Wednesday afternoon and taking the girls to the park for pictures.  The plan did not involve souricette 2 getting sick.  She wasn’t supposed to get some sort of stomach bug.  She wasn’t supposed to spend all day yesterday needing me to wipe her cute little butt.  Like, every 10 minutes.

I stayed up way too late but I finished it all up and we got pictures at the park.

Do you recognize that pink and red fabric?  It’s the one I mentioned right before KCW started.

I started with the outfit for souricette 2.  She’s been dressing herself more and more in the morning.  That means tees and skirts or leggings because she can access them easily whereas the dresses are hung up too high for her to reach.  Only she doesn’t have a lot of skirts and tees since she’s been all about the dresses for so long.  So she needed a skirt and a tee. I’d been meaning to make her the Oliver+S Hula Hoop skirt.  So I did.  I went with some leftover dark grey quilting cotton for the contrast.  This went together really quickly.  Bonus, no edges to finish since everything is tucked in.  And it’s reversible.

For the tee, I simply turned to my trusty Jalie 2805.  Seriously, I don’t understand why I don’t hear about these patterns more.  They’re awesome.  Simply awesome.  The instructions are clear but they don’t hold your hand.  The size range is huge.  This pattern is for a basic tee with 4 neckline variations.  I did the crew neck and colorblocked a stripe of the shibori fabric down the middle.

She approves.

I had a harder time making a choice for souricette 1.  I ended up choosing Charlie.  It’s just so cute.  I love the fitted top and the shorter length on it.  I chose the size 4 for width and 7 for length.  I was going to do the whole thing with the shibori fabric but I didn’t have enough of it.  Besides, I wasn’t sure I would like the effect of allover shibori.  I ended up choosing some white cotton interlock that I’ve had for ages and sews up beautifully.  The beauty of Charlie’s fitted style is that it works well with knits too and since it’s designed for wovens, there aren’t a lot of places where the seams need to stretch.  A plain old straight stitch works fine everywhere unless you make some modifications requiring extra stretch.

I cut the back on the fold, thinking that she would just slip it over her head.  And then I decided the dress needed shibori bias at the neckline and that thing isn’t stretchy enough…  So I cut an opening down the back (with a placket or facing or whatever so there are no raw edges).

Do you see the lines on the side?  I also did the same thing as on my second Foxglove. I sewed the side seams wrong sides together so that the seam allowance would be outside.  This time, I put in two rows of topstitching on either side.

At that point, the whole front of the dress was white.  I showed it to souricette 1.  Her first comment?  Is that MY fabric?  With such pride in her voice!  I asked her if she thought the front needed something extra and she told me it needed a heart.  In her fabric. I asked her if she would like to draw me the design and she did.  She added in some swirls.

Yes, swirlS.  No, you aren’t crazy. You did only see one.  By the time I was done with the first swirl, it was past 2AM.  I made the executive decision to only have one.  Souricette 1 doesn’t mind.  I love it like that.  It isn’t too busy and I was careful to keep to souricette 1’s lines.  The heart is the one she drew.  The swirl is her work.  It makes me smile.  I doodle swirls all the time.  She saw me once and copied me.  She does them a lot now.  But hers look a little different.  Mine are very smooth where hers have a slight angularity to them at times.  They’re really cool.  I love how she took something from me and made it her own.

About deuxsouriceaux

Creative mommy at home to two wonderful little girls, trying to juggle family, sewing, exercise, family, knitting, photography, and did I mention family?