kids sewing week: ellie’s zoo dress – oliver + s birthday party dress

Kids Sewing Week was a great big bust around here.  In that it made me want to chuck everything I owned out a window and light it on fire in frustration.  Okay, not THAT bad, but I don’t like being completely unable to keep to a schedule…and having to bump this dress to the next day on my to do list every single day made me a little insane.

This took well over the 7 hours of sewing week, mainly because of a lot of hemming and hawing on my part, hesitating on a step that I was unsure about, questioning a direction that seemed counterintuitive…but now that it’s done I’m very happy and will make it again and I could probably easily knock another one out within 7 hours.  For this 15 month old tall but lean baby I made the 12-18 month size.  It fits really well (which is a relief–picking a size is always a little scary!)

The pattern is good–well written, with lots of little tips and explanations as to why you should do something at that point (helpful for someone like me that wants to read through it all and understand it before jumping in blindly).  The experience reminded me a lot of Amy Butler bags and the way I feel while following her patterns.  It takes way longer than a more casual pattern or tutorial with lots of extra little time consuming steps, but in the end you have a professional looking item.  Worth it in retrospect, but annoying during the execution phase when you just want to get it done and admire your work!  My only true disappointment with the pattern is that it is definitely written for sewers without sergers.  So if you do have a serger, you’re just using it to finish the edges of unsewn pattern pieces–you don’t get to use it to your time advantage.

When I make this bad boy again I’m going to simplify it by making the back one piece and having the shoulder straps close with a button.  It’s really cute on (much cuter than I expected), but the buttons up the back add a lot of steps and I’m not a fan of the way the shoulder straps come together in this pattern.  I couldn’t make it look perfectly clean.

(In the above shot you can see the contrasting hem facing–one of those additional pain-in-the-butt steps that really does end up being very cute, even if a serged rolled hem would have been a lot faster!)

One Oliver + S pattern conquered, two more to go before this summer is over!