01 december 2011

Gold Star Dress and velvet leggings

I saw this dress by Bengh that I really really like a lot. It´s a jersey dress with a slim fit and three quarter length sleeves with a ruffle. A nice, basic, comfy dres for little girls. What makes it so special is the fabric: a grey jersey with big blue (or red or green, they come in different colors) dots. They remind me of christmas ornaments!   

All said and done, the dress is quite expensive (the whole brand is quite expensive) and were it not for the exclusive special fabric, the simple model is IMHO not worth the hefty tag. Liking the style, I wanted to make someting similar. I drafted a pattern using my favorite t/shirt pattern, the Ottobre slim fit tee pattern (Creative Workshop 301) in sz 122 and elongated it by about 15 cm plus hem. I widened the neckline by 1.5cm on each shoulder as most Bengh tops have a bit of a boat neck. Didn´t want to make it too wide though or it will look weird on skinny little girls necks. So far it was easy. What fabric would give the same holiday atmosphere, and would have the same vintage feel as Bengh. I settled on cutting up and old sweatshirt dress of myself, because it has a nice grayish jeans blue color, plus for the true vintage feel, was already worn in pretty well. I carefully cut up the dress on the seam lines, ironed the parts, and got out my magic little pot of gold (fabric paint, that is). I painted stars on each panel until I ran out of paint, too bad because I was on a gold star mission, could´ve gone on for hours haha. Sewed up the dress, made a little backside pocket using the old kangaroo pocket from the front. Was pondering to add a bow at side of the neckline but did not have the right fabric to sew one, and a ribbon bow looked too flimsy. So no bow. Then to stay somewhat true to the brand inspiring it all, I sewed up a pair of dark blue velvet leggings. We had to toss which girl got to wear the outfit first today, even my pants-only girl likes it that much. ´´Yeah it´s a dress but it doesn´t matter ´coz it has gold STARS!!!´´ Don´t you just love it when your goodies are received in such cheerful manner!