Kids Clothes Week Part 2

My plan to use Mother’s Day to get the girls to model their clothes for me worked!

First up, the shorts I made for E. They’re the Oliver + S Class Picnic Shorts. I’ve made them twice before but the girls didn’t wear them because they were in a all dresses all the time phase. Last Summer, E started wearing shorts and rompers. I even saw her wear some other shorts I had made her over a year ago. They were a bit too big then but now they fit well. (Revisiting that post, what strikes me is that she hasn’t worn the sweater this year. She wore it all the time right after I made it and it’s like it doesn’t exist anymore…)

So. Class Picnic Shorts. I used some stretch denim remnants for the main fabric. I juuuust managed to fit all the pattern pieces on it. For the contrast, I asked E what she wanted and she asked for the same fabric as V’s dress (the paisley one from last week). I used buttonhole elastic so she would be able to tighten the waist. I made a size 8 for my tiny 10 year old. And even then, look at how much she ease she had to lose in the back! She doesn’t seem that skinny to me but there you go.

And then V. This is the dress that she declared she hated because she was suddenly over low backs. After the pictures, she said the dress was growing on her. I’m not sure what that means in terms of actually wearing the dress… It’s the Winter Wear Designs Sightseer Sun Dress. Size, uh, 6, I guess? The one that matched her measurements.

The fabrics were purchased in Avignon. The bias tape is made from fabric that has only the pattern from the white stripes of the main fabric. I was originally only going to buy that one and the salesman convinced to get some of the striped one to use as contrast…  So this dress ended up using almost all of my contrast fabric and only a small fraction of my main fabric. The fabric itself is cotton and is quite stiff. I’m hoping it softens in the wash.

The skirt is balanced (and my pattern matching on the side seams is excellent if I do say so myself). These flared skirts in stripes always end up curving the stripes creating the illusion the the sides are lower then the front and back. I don’t usually make anything other than straight or gathered skirts from stripes because of that issue but I couldn’t help myself. Maybe I should have cut the skirt to have four parts and cut the fabric on some sort of bias to have more of a chevron effect.

The pattern itself was fine. I did change the armhole binding. The pattern has you binding the edges before sewing the side seam. I did it after. It just looks cleaner that way.

Now, here’s hoping I manage to coordinate a photoshoot of the girls and I in our matching exercise tops…

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?