Badminton Dress: a new 'robe-y'

Having slogged through the patching of many pairs of jeans, and having sewn up all my remaining Liloup summer sets (that I cut out two months ago, ahem...), I treated myself to sewing a dress for my two year-old today!  Over the past few months she's become very opinionated about her clothing and will reject the outfits that my husband or I pick out for her in the morning.  Over the past week or so she's become very interested in wearing "robe-ys," her take on the French word for dress (robe).  As in, "You have a big robe-y, Maman!"  or "You have robe-y, I have robe-y.  Same, same!"  I guess this is part of her developing gender identification.  Her favorite morning activity involves putting on a robe-y (usually over a teeshirt and pants, at our insistence) and listening to her new, favorite musician Vanessa Trien.  Then she'll swish the hem of her dress around while dancing to any number of songs about barn animals and driving cars.

Enter the Oliver + S Badminton Dress.  I love these patterns.  They are just classy, in this way that makes regular patterns look downright tawdry, and fun for sewists like me who get into geeky details.  While I could never pay $16 for a pattern, certain generous family members indulged me for my birthday (thanks, Dad!) and paired with some new Denyse Schmidt fabrics from JoAnn (Meadowlark, cream circles on orange; and Aunt Edna, multicolored circles on burgundy), I was ready to go.


I do have a few criticisms of Oliver + S patterns, which surely reflect my familiarity with mainsteam patterns' conventions.  Seam allowances are 1/2" not 5/8", which matters because my presser foot doesn't have a mark at 1/2".  Cutting layout is buried in the tissue pattern instead of printed on the directions sheets.

These problems were trifles compared to the serious errors I made from not reading the directions carefully, though.  Suffice to say that I had the opportunity to redo the entire ribbon casing right before attaching the neck binding.  And that I did the neck binding twice.

But wasn't it all worth it for THIS?




And this!  I don't love how the darker color shows through the hem but the scalloping is a pretty grand effect for little effort.  I made a stitching guide out of a cereal box which helped me mark where to stitch and which I used to press the hem when it was done.

Refashioning my tees into toddler tunics

Read all the way to end to uncover this tee's life story!

Upcycling knitwear is a very satisfying way to recover some wear from your old grown-up teeshirts.  I've already turned grown-up tees into baby pants (see here).  Now I'm looking into transforming tees into toddler tops.  Ever since I had kids, all my tops are too short.  I cannot figure this out (I mean, I know why they're too tight, but why too short?).  In any case, I have a bin of old teeshirts with cool logos and interesting prints that's sitting in the basement.  Upcycling knitwear saves you having to find and buy cotton knit fabric, which is not so easy and rather pricey.

Inspired by a knit series on Rae's great blog, I've been thinking more about the benefits of sewing knits for my children.  After all, most of our favorite store-bought kids' clothes are knits.  I love dressing my daughter in Tea tunics like these, when we're lucky enough to get them as hand-me-downs:

 

Down to the basement I went.  I pulled out the current best-fitting Tea tunic before naptime, so here's what I had to work with:

Left: pricey, cute toddler tunic. Right: grown-up tee that's seen better days on mama.  As in, a decade ago.

Then, I needed to cut down the big tee.  I followed the tunic's width for cutting the sides and I cut the sleeve as you see here:

From top: original sleeve, new sleeve, model sleeve

Here are the steps for sewing the new tunic:

1. Poke a hole in the neckline (do this wherever it's seamed - usually at one shoulder, which I noticed too late).  Thread some very thin elastic through with a safety pin and cinch it to match the neckline of your model shirt.  Stitch down the elastic on either side of the poked hole.  Not elegant, but totally functional and really not something anyone but you will notice.

Don't poke in the middle of the back like I did - you'll run into a shoulder seam almost immediately!

Gathered neckline fits a little kid easily.

2. Sew the side seams up to where you plan to add the sleeves.

3. Sew your sleeves into the sleeve holes.  This involves some stretching and pinning and is the most time-consuming step.  Hang in there.  You're almost done.

4. Try the shirt on your kiddo and adjust hem accordingly.  Warning to the uninitiated: hemming knits is hell.  Read Rae (see above) for tips or get ready for a wavy, wavy ride (as I did).  

A bit too long, I'd say.  Must wait 'til next nap to hem.  And it's Sunday.  Ah well.  See you next week.

One week later, the hem is done.  As a French teacher (reason why I can't sew 5 days of the week!), I must inform you that this shirt reads: Perfect!  With plenty of small faults.  Bought in Strasbourg in 2006.

5. You can do this with short-sleeve tees, too.  However, the sleeve will be too wide at the hem (with long sleeves, the width is close enough to begin with).  You'll need to seam the sleeve to make it narrower before Step 3.

Neged ayin ha-ra (Hebrew) means: Against the evil eye. I bought this tee in Jerusalem in 2001, when taking the bus to the mall felt like a death-defying act because of the second Intifada.

Happy sewing!