My 3 year old daughter is such a girly girl. It's probably our own doing but gosh she looks cute in pink with her blond ringlets. So when I saw some bright pink wool on a half price clearance at spotlight I knew I had to make her something out of it. I have been wanting to make myself the fitted gown out of The Tudor Tailor since I first saw it but just haven't gotten around to it yet. So I thought what better way to try out the pattern than by making it in miniature? Less expensive if I totally stuff it up, right?
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| Fitted Gown featured in The Tudor Tailor book |
Now going back to before Rowany Festival this year when I was in a garb making craze trying to churn stuff out for my kids, I found out the hard way that toddlers aren't just smaller sized adults. Their little bodies are totally differently shaped and proportioned and they have huge heads. After spending two hours trying to scale down a florentine bodice pattern and wondering what I was doing wrong I sought help from the mighty interwebs and the best advice I found was "grab a t-shirt that fits and trace around it". At first I thought it sounded a bit lazy but it really did make things so much easier.
This time around I was wiser and so I actually grabbed her favourite jacket and basically used the same pattern but removed the hood and made it longer. And added a few extra inches on each side so it lasts a bit longer (hopefully anyway).
I only bought two metres of the fabric (it was still $20/m) so I was pretty limited when it came to the sleeves. Instead of the cute puffed and paned sleeves she ended up with plain 3/4 length ones. The collar was also pieced together by necessity but I don't feel too bad about that since I know they did that in period anyway.
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| Pink Wool |
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| Back |
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| Front |
After I cut out all the pink wool and started sewing it up I realised I had forgotten to overlock all the pieces. I'm a bit OCD about fraying raw edges. I also refuse to spend hours felling the seams on a toddler's dress which will be lucky to be worn thrice. So I decided to line the whole thing with some navy blue cotton I had leftover from long ago.
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| Navy blue cotton broadcloth |
It looks super cute against the pink. I had a bit of a mishap trying to work out how to sew the sleeves of the outer fabric and lining together. Not sure how I managed it but there was nowhere for your hand to come out when it was the right way out but there was when it was the wrong way. I'm still a bit confused about the whole thing. In the end I turned it around the right way, tucked the raw ends in and used a blind hem to sew them together. I did the same thing on the bottom hem too. This way I ended up with a reversible coat dress!
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| Pink side out |
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| Blue side out |
And don't forget the trim! I bought this trim at rowany festival earlier this year from Anwyn at Sign of the Lambtree with the intention of using it on some sort of kids garb. I think the colours work together really well. Again I only bought 2m (instead of my standard 10) so I didn't have enough to put it on the blue side but hopefully I can get more. She also made me an offer where if I email her a picture of the trim I purchased on a piece of garb for her to display on her website I get a discount next time which is pretty awesome!
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| Close up of trim pinned in place |
I'm not very happy with how the collar turned out. It doesn't sit nicely and it's definitely something I'll fiddle with next time. I think the neckline is too close to the shoulders rather than being fitted around the neck. Grace doesn't mind though.
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| Collar |
I still haven't decided on a type of fastening. Mostly she just wears it open or we can use a nappy pin. I need to find something that will still enable it to be reversible. It's coming into summer here though so I'm not sure how often it will even get worn between now and next year's rowany festival.
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