Pretty Fall Dress and a Dinosaur Vest

I have had this material for a good year, and have had quite the time trying to figure out what to make with it.  I really like the design of it, and it is a nice soft babycord.  It is the perfect little Fall dress and just right for school pictures tomorrow morning.  I made sure to not only check the box that I didn’t want the fakey background, but to also wrote “NO FAKE BACKGROUNDS”.  Think they will mess it up again this year?  Yeah, me, too.

I decided to make it a fitted dress.  I was thinking of making a lovely Asian inspired one from Ottobre, but that was one of my pattern sheets that ended up in the recycling. *dramatic sigh*  I used the pattern I have for her knit tops, but I knew that it would have to have either a zipper or buttons in the back.  I cut the pattern out a few inches below the waistline and split the back, adding an inch.  I also lined the top with a cream soft chamois fabric.  The buttons on the back are vintage 70’s, I believe.  I may change them out for some plain flat buttons, though, since they are bit bulky to be going down the spine.  The bottom hem is a bit cobbled.  I should have made the three twirl layers longer than the 5 inches I cut, so I didn’t want it to be any shorter.  I decided to use a new package of orange binding I had.  There were 3 yards and I was a about 1 yard short.  Think it’s a little twirly? 😉  Good thing I had some cream and brown ends that worked to fill in the gap.

She has a few pair of leggings that will work underneath the dress.  The dress isn’t very long, so she definitely needs some leggings.  I should have made it bigger, though, since I think she will only be able to wear it this winter.   It’s a perfect fit right now, and she looks ADORABLE in it. 🙂

Kailan’s vest is made from a super slippery, very pliable and highly fraying jacquard fabric.  That made it oh so fun to make.  The fabric has a sheen to it and is a bit more green than the pictures show.  I used a vest pattern I had and just made it longer and added the buttons to the top.  It is lined in not one, but TWO different colors of chamois fabric.  Don’t look at the inside…it’s not pretty.  There were several things I did wrong with this vest, but luckily it will probably get worn less than 5 times so hopefully no one notices.  At least no one that didn’t already get it pointed out to on this blog. 😉

Of course, since it has dinosaurs the little man is quite pleased.

I think my serger needs to go into the shop for some TLC soon.  I have a bad habit of not getting pins out of the way in time for them to get lodged into the cutting blade.  It’s having a bit of a hard time cutting right now…of course, the poor thing has had lots of work since I got it out of the box this past winter, too.  After I get a few more projects out of the way I’ll get to it…hopefully.