Thursday, May 11, 2017
Pirate Dress Plus that myfabrics co uk discount code again!
Pirate Dress Plus that myfabrics co uk discount code again!
All together now, A band of naughty pirates stole some jewels from me... etc. As predictably obsessed with princesses, ballerinas and fairies as Dolores currently is, she is also equally into pirates (and the CBeebies programme Swashbuckle by association). So when I found this pirate printed jersey on the myfabrics.co.uk site that actually featured a girl pirate in the design (can you believe?!) I knew it had to be in my selection.
Pattern:
As with my first make using myfabrics.co.uk knit, my first port of call was my small but trusty stash of Ottobre Design magazines. They always have lots of knit options in each issue so theyre great for finding something a bit different to a basic T-shirt or leggings pattern.
For this project, I thought itd be fun to interpret a potentially stereotypically masculine fabric into a dress. This is the Circus Horse dress pattern from the Autumn 4/2013 issue of Ottobre. It looks super comfy, with long raglan sleeves, gently gathered cuffs, a drop waist and gathered skirt. For me, it also had the benefit of being a pattern that Id already traced out the pieces for as Ive already made a garment from it just over a year ago. Its hilarious to see those pics where I made a tiny not-yet-two-year-old model a dress that still looks a bit big on her a year later! Despite that Paris fabric version still being big (I combined the size 92 width with size 98 length), Dolores loves it and requests to wear it all the time, so I hoped I was on to another winner with a pirate version.
Fabric:
This is my second choice of free fabric kindly offered to me by myfabrics.co.uk in exchange for writing an honest review about it. It is a medium weight single jersey knit with the same soft handle of the lightning flash fabric. I received 80cm from which I could comfortably cut this dress, plus theres enough left for either some cute accents on another garment or a couple of baby dribble bibs or something.
I decided to break up the onslaught of pirates with some solid red jersey sleeves (using leftovers from my maternity leggings), plus I was feeling lazy so decided to bind the neckline and wrist edges with some fold over elastic from my stash rather than making and applying knit bindings. This meant that I could skip the step that suggested gathering the bottom edge of the sleeves with clear elastic before stitching on the wrist bindings: with the FOE I could gather and bind in one single step.
Thoughts and discount code:
A real success! BTW, my current definition of success in this context is a garment that Dolores will just agree to put on, without weeks of having to cunningly offer it up in a limited selection of garment options every morning until she finally bites. Its very tempting to sew A LOT of these dresses, as she can move and play in them without restriction whilst simultaneously not needing to scream I WANT TO WEAR A DRESS, MUMMY! when she looks down and finds out Ive duped her into jeans and a T-shirt. Id like to make a crazy patchwork one that uses a mix of print and solid knits for all the different pieces of the garment.
As for the knit, at £14.40 its not the cheapest fabric out there on the internet, but I can genuinely say that it IS excellent quality that seems to be very comfortable to wear and washes brilliantly. If youve got small people to sew for, this would be ideal as a small length can go a long way, especially if you can combine it with other solid pieces from your stash.
Available link for download
