I look forward to receiving my "Aunt of the Year" award; I've been composing my acceptance speech since finishing this project!
As my nieces have grown, I've stopped sewing them clothes basically unless they ask for something specific. But I love the challenge of sewing based on their specific requests (remember this dramatic cape?) and the designs they dream up (like this puffy sleeved cold shoulder top)!
My niece Anna recently had a birthday, and requested that I sew her a dress she designed. How could I resist with this level of buttering up?!
Here's a closer view. Lots going on here! A dramatic collar, neck bow, multi-colored bodice, multi-colored skirt!
I asked if there was any specific inspiration for the dress, and her mom told me Anna said "it's a design made up from a plushie I have." I asked if the dress was meant to be worn to school, or more of a dress-up dress. The reply was "More of a dress-up at home dress, you know, when I'm in the mood." ;-)
Here's the plushie in question - I can see how the sort of harlequin look of it has influenced her design:
Ok, now how to create her look? I started out by perusing my patterns to choose an appropriate bodice. I wanted something simple, not a lot of design lines since I was going to be adding in the color blocked sections, and not too fitted.
I landed on the Style Arc Montana Dress, specifically with the Montana dress extension pack with the extra sleeves. I opted for bodice A from the extension pack and sleeve C, the elbow-length straight sleeve. Size 12, which worked great.
The Montana has a gathered skirt, but I thought Anna's drawing suggested more of circle skirt. Since I'd made it recently, I had the Montoya Mayo Ejiro half-circle skirt pattern out in my sewing room.
I placed the front of the Ejiro skirt over the Montana bodice and they fit pretty well at the waistline, so I opted for that. I used the front of the Ejiro skirt for both the front and the back skirts here:
For fabric, I was struggling a bit. Knowing I was unlikely to find anything in these colors at my local shops, I ended up going to Joann, which was pretty stripped down at that point. I struggled with the lack of selection, but decided on some solid quilting cottons that were roughly the right colors.
I wanted a more teal blue, like the drawing, but ended up with this more cornflower blue, which was closer to the blue of Anna's plushie. For the white, I used some bleached muslin I had in my stash.
I agonized over how to do the colorblocking on the bodice and skirt. I considered slashing the pattern pieces and doing it properly, but I was worried about the curves and angles.
In the end I decided to basically applique the colorblock pieces (curves on the bodice and pointed pieces on the skirt) onto the base bodice and skirt using a tight zigzag stitch.
For the skirt, I drew out the shapes onto the flat skirt and appliquéd the blue onto the white skirt before sewing the skirt up. For the bodice, I sewed it up first before deciding on the size and placement of the applique pieces.
There were a couple other details from Anna's design that I needed to figure out: the collar and bow at the neckline. For the collar, I traced the bodice neckline and extended it out roughly into the shape of the pointed collar from her drawing. After sewing the collar pieces together, I sandwiched them between the bodice and neckline facing.
For the bow, I used the free Made for Mermaids fabric bow pattern, the medium size, and did a little rolled hem edge. I hand sewed it onto the dress, with a gold button from my stash on the knot.
It looks cute on her, she seems to really like it, and I feel like I did her drawing justice, so I'm feeling pretty chuffed! An excellent creative partnership.
