[Tamara]

Crikey! Are you pulling an all-nighter?

Yes I’ve marked both measurements also and have given a 4 inch ease but I have decided to go to a 14 just so that she can wear it all through summer. I don’t know how much she is going to grow but we are talking about 8 months of wear on a dress and she could need that extra room especially considering she is 58 inchs tall already and that is at the big end of a 12.

Considering this, I can see myself doing alot of resizing of patterns before the warmer weather hits lol. We’ll see how it all turns out. I’m just about ready to do the sleeve and collar and then I can make a muslin before the bus arrives. Hopefully my daughter will be in a better mood to try it this time.

Oh! Re: the placket, I lengthened this by an inch (I think). I just took the different between the two sizes and added. May need to be resorted but I haven’t got to that bit yet.

[Tamara]

It’s official! I succeeded in making the Jumprope dress fit my ever expanding never stopping in growth nearly 9 year old. She complied and tried on the new muslin for me and I’m going with that size in order to give more room.

Now…. to select the fabric and sew.

[Violaisabelle]

No all nighter, thankfully. 😉 I traced off a couple patterns and than I cut out a hopscotch dress for my daughter. The boys got camo shirts and daughter really wanted a camo something….shirt or dress, so we went with the dress. 🙂

Congratulations on the success. How much ease did you go with in the end, if you don’t mind me asking?

It’s a full and busy day here today, I’m not sure how much sewing I will get done.

Looking forward to seeing your hard work. 🙂

Carol

[Tamara]

Hi Carol,

I used 4 inches ease as she is not all that broad around the chest and that was the difference anyway. I figured that if that didn’t work I could just go back and do another and that way I’d be practising the techniques.

Thankfully the muslin fitted first time around. I have to thank you so much for linking the blog post as here I was on Wednesday trying to draft a new size by measuring the difference at each point and adding on instead of cutting and slicing and spreading. I took virtually the whole day yesterday to do this but only because my son had his “day off” from school (pre primary isn’t compulsory here yet) and I had to do errands in town. I managed to get the pattern completed before I picked up my daughter from the bus though so all I had to do was sew a quick muslin and get her to try it on.

I think you would consider the size I used as a O+S 14. It doesn’t look huge on her but will give her enough room to get in and out and that is the main thing and if I am lucky she can wear the long sleeved one next winter – provided she doesn’t do another 4 inch growth stint.

Camo something sounds very interesting. Will it be pink camo or boy colour camo?

[Violaisabelle]

Thanks Tamara. I’m sure looking forward to seeing the dresses. 🙂 Please let me know if the 4″ of ease allows her to get the dresses on and off easily, on her own.

Camo in the pink. She looks really great in it. I’ll try to post pictures later today. It’s a holiday weekend here and we had a BBQ with guests last night…. no sewing got done. Hopefully I can get a bit done this weekend.

Carol

[Violaisabelle]

Camo dress posted in the flickr pool.

Carol

[Tamara]

Well I finished the green dress and will have some photos today (hopefully if a) dd complies and b) we can find somewhere sheltered as it’s raining). She has to wear it to church – I told her (because she’s a naughty girl and refuses to go). I’ll get started on the pink one later today.

Thank you for your prayers for my mil, she’s stable and looks as though she will be flown home again to hospital closer to us by the end of the week. They are very much appreciated.

I do have to say, you either work really fast or their are fairies helping you 🙂 What holiday is it? Our next long weekend has been shifted because of the CHOGM summit that is happening in Perth. This means we don’t get the long weekend to start the next school break but at the end of October instead (also means that we are whipping out Harvesting machinery on a long weekend so no going away – sob!)

I’m going to show my daughter your photo and see if she likes it enough for me to make her one – I like it ALOT!

[Violaisabelle]

I hope you were able to get your photos today, Tamara. I’m really looking forward to seeing them. 🙂

Glad to read that your mum in law is doing better. Continued prayers for her!

Sometimes I can be fast, but many times I am not. Lots of interruptions with our size family. I’m always getting distracted or called away, but that’s OK, that’s life. 🙂 I love your handle, I have thought of it over the past few weeks as I have thought through projects I want to do. I need to stop thinking and ‘just sew it’! 🙂

The camo fabric is nothing like your adorable smocking garments, but it’s fun for us here in the big open west of Canada.

In our province, Alberta, it is “Heritage Day” on Monday. All the provinces name the holiday something different. 🙂

I am off to try and get most of this Hopscotch dress sewn up.

Sleep well….

Carol

[Tamara]

I did I did ! I just put them up. With all the jumping around those children of mine did you’d think I have about 50 in my care (two very noisy children!!)

Thanks so much for the continued prayers – she’s not out of the woods as yet and will be a while before she can come home and be out of hospital. We had a minor panick last night though when our pastor rang us – we thought we had to brace ourselves for the worse but it was just to make sure that we knew what was going on and that my father in law was going to come down. He will be staying with my parents which is good because he will need support and company.

I considered my “name” because yes I am a thinker – thinking too much and not sewing it up. Procrastination gets me no where. It may seem like I work quickly but I don’t either – lots of disruptions and I agree it’s life and you just have to roll with it.

Thankyou so much for the compliment on my smocking. It’s something that I absolutely adore and have two in production mode to display at the shows this year (if I didn’t exhibit things then we wouldn’t have anything to see. Plus I actually enjoy showing people what I make and having constructive criticism given to help me improve). My daughter will have these and they will probably be her last ones. She still loves her pretty dresses.

Camo seems to be popular these days in the design world – lots of collections are featuring it. It’s fun fabric and I didn’t even realise you hailed from Canada (silly me).

Ok so it’s Heritage Day weekend which would probably be similar to our Foundation Day in WA to start WA week. I’m not sure if the other states have anything like this but I know they have the Queen’s birthday weekend either the same weekend or the weekend after. Oh it’s too confusing.

I think the four inches of ease was enough for this dress and we worked on the principal of arms first then head to get the thing on her. It has enough room for now to pop a hopscotch top underneath and still have the roomy look. I’m proud of the end result. So now I’m going to do the pink one in view a with long sleeves as that was the request. I just have to resize the square pockets and the skirt (because I didn’t do all of it at once).

Tamara

[Violaisabelle]

I just realized I never posted back in this thread with the final results of my grading up of the dress. I put the photos up in the flickr pool, but did not post it here. If anyone is following this thread for grading up and want to see the end results of my project, you can see the photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/33022738@N08/6081315539/in/photostream and http://www.flickr.com/photos/33022738@N08/6081854598/in/photostream. There are other photos in my flickr account as well.

Carol