Christmas Skater Dress

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone! Sorry I haven't been very active on the blog lately. I have a quick project to share with you today--a Christmas Skater Dress I made for Ella!

I've been needing to make Ella another Skater Dress by Kitschy Coo forever, so when Modes4U sent me a half yard cut of both the green knit and the woven Cosmo Christmas print, I had a "make it work" moment! You see, Ella has gone up to a size 7, and the skirt of the Skater Dress requires more than a half yard of fabric to cut out the width of the skirt correctly. I decided to make the skirt not as full and make the half yard of fabric work. It turned out fine, in my opinion!

Hosh Pants & Skater Sweater Refashion

I am so behind in posting all the things I've made Ella over the last couple of months, so I hope this little outfit will inspire someone who is having cooler weather right now.  It's already warming up here in the south which really limits the days she has left to wear outfits like this.

Today I'm featuring the Hosh Pants Pattern by Lou Bee Clothing and a ladies' turtleneck refashioned into a girl's turtleneck using the Skater Dress Pattern by Kitschy Coo.

First, the pants are incredibly simple to make using Sarah's Hosh Pants Pattern.  The pattern has one piece for the legs, so there are no side seams.  Plus she shows you in detail in the pattern photos how to make an adjustable waistband using buttonhole elastic.  Since the pants have a flat front and my daughter's waistline measurement hasn't changed much, I opted to keep things even simpler and just make a casing to run regular elastic through the back waistband.

After consulting the pattern's sizing chart, I opted to make Ella the size 4T and added about an inch and a half to the length (she's tall for her age).  The fabric is a polyester/spandex suiting remnant that I bought from Joann's ages ago.  The fabric is so soft and was a breeze to sew.  Another plus is that it does not wrinkle!  I wash them and then hang them up to dry.  They have never needed ironing!

To make these pants look a little dressier, I added a pocket flap to the back.

All I did was take two rectangles of fabric, place them right sides together, and sew around the edges leaving an opening for turning.  Turn right side out, press, and then topstitch all the way around the rectangle closing the opening in the process.  I then stitched it on the back of the pants and sewed a button on it to keep it down.  No buttonhole required!

Since the legs are tapered and narrow at the bottom, these are perfect to wear inside tall boots.  The whole outfit looks like she is ready for a horse riding lesson!

I have a lot of sweaters that were once my mom's, but they are too big for me.  I've been holding on to them for so long and just can't seem to part with any, so I decided I would take some and try to refashion them into things for Ella.  

The sweater started out as a Land's End Fine Gauge Turtleneck Sweater in a women's size medium.

I thought about using the Bimaa Sweater Pattern from Lou Bee Clothing for the refashion, but I didn't have enough fabric from the sweater to make it.  It's a great pattern, too.  You can see the first one I made here, and I'll be blogging about a second one I made later this week.

Instead, I decided to use the Skater Dress Pattern from Kitschy Coo for the turtleneck refashion.  The Skater Dress is an awesome pattern that I got to try out as part of the pattern blog tour earlier this month.  Here is the link to the Skater Dress I made for Ella.

Sorry I didn't take pictures of the process, but it was really simple to do.  First, I cut off the sleeves along the armhole seam.  Then I used the bodice pattern piece and matched up the existing shoulder seam to the top of the shoulder on the pattern while positioning the pattern fold line along the center of the sweater.  This allowed me to keep the original turtleneck.

Next, I used the Skater Dress skirt pattern piece to determine the top and bottom width of the skirt and estimated the length needed.  Ella had tried the sweater on before I began cutting, so I knew roughly how much of the length I needed to remove.

I then cut the seam of the sleeves open so to give me flat pieces of fabric.  I then used the sleeve pattern piece by cut out the sleeves that fit Ella.  I made sure to use the hemmed edge so I wouldn't have to do any hemming!

Sewing the sweater together was quick (like maybe 30 minutes) and all on the serger.  When I finished the ensemble, Ella exclaimed that she now had a Moma outfit!  She was so giddy!

I just love the fit and overall look of this entire outfit.  It quickly became one of Ella's favorite things to wear, so I hope it will all still fit in the Fall.  She loves the softness of the pants fabric, and the fit is so good that she does not constantly tug at the back to pull up the pants after she squats down to play.

I'll definitely use both of these patterns--the Hosh Pants and the Skater Dress--again in the near future.  In fact, I might just make a pair of Hosh Shorts and a Skater Tank Sweater for this Spring/Summer.

I hope you'll come back all this week to see other pants I've made Ella recently.  At the end of the week, I'll post a round-up of all of the pants posts I've done on sewVery!  See you tomorrow!

The Skater Dress

I think it's pretty cool!

Have you seen this pattern yet? It's the Skater Dress pattern from Kitschy Coo, and it's definitely one that you'll use again and again!

Today I'm participating in Kitschy Coo's Skater Dress Blog Tour along with a slew of other very talented bloggers.  You'll want to go through and visit each one to see how they customized the Skater Dress for their own special little girl.

As some of you may have read recently, I'm exploring new fabrics and sewing with some knits now.  I had such great success with the Bimaa Sweater a few weeks ago, that I jumped at the chance to make my first ever knit dress (the Skater Dress) for little Ella.

I meant to buy some new fabric to make this dress, but my family was anxiously impatiently waiting in the car when I had a chance to go to the fabric store.  I couldn't make up my mind under pressure, so I ended up using the only yardage of knit I had at home.  I have no idea where this fabric came from.  I think it just magically appeared!  Anyway, it's a cotton interlock knit of decent quality, and I had some left over ribbed knit from the second Bimaa Sweater I made that was perfect for the neck and wrist bands.

What I ended up with was a very purplicious dress!  My daughter loves it!

But I didn't stop there.  My friend, Lindsay, from Lindsay Sews had posted a picture on Facebook of this skate fabric, and the colorway was a perfect match to Ella's new Skater Dress!  Lindsay graciously provided me with her scraps of the Melody Miller Ruby Star Sparkle Rollerskates Go With Me fabric, and I was able to piece together one entire skate to then applique to the front of her dress.  Thanks, Lindsay!

I know it's very literal, but I just couldn't get this fabric graphic out of my head!  And since the colors were a perfect match to the dress, I had to do it.  Plus, this skate reminds me of all the nights I spent hanging out and skating with my friends in high school.  It makes me smile to look at it!

After I finished piecing the skate print together, I used a piece of heat and bond lite to fuse it to the dress.  Then I secured it by sewing a zigzag stitch in the dark purple thread all the way around the rectangle.  Super simple!

So here are some more details about the Skater Dress Pattern.  It comes in sizes 18 month to 8 youth and offers you three sleeve options--sleeveless, short, and long--so you can make dresses from it all year round for years and years!

Ella's dress was made using the 5/6 youth, and as you can see, it might be just a little long at the moment.  I think it fits well in the bodice particularly at the shoulder, but she just turned 4, so I expected it to be a slightly on the large side.  With washing and drying, I suspect it will draw up a little bit.  Plus, she'll have this to wear again in the fall!

The pattern instructions were very simple to understand and accompanied by tons of photos and helpful tips for sewing with knits including how to hem the knit dress on your regular machine using a single or double needle.  Following Amanda's instructions, I was able to hem Ella's dress with no stretching or ugly rippling of the fabric.

All in all, this pattern was a joy to sew.  Now that it is starting to warm up, I better make Ella a short-sleeved version, too.

Don't forget to follow along on Kitschy Coo's Skater Dress Pattern Tour.  I know I will! Thanks, Amanda, for inviting me!