April "Minnie" make for my daughter

Hello everyone!

Happy May!

I am excited to update you on what I have sewn since my last post!!!  Ok, so that happens to only be TWO projects, but they are two great ones! Today I am focusing on my make for April--my daughter's overall dress.

I enjoyed sewing this project!  Back when this Ottobre issue came out, my daughter picked her faves, and this overall dress was at the top of her list.  Nakisha from Dressmaking Debacles commented "She's so cute and she's spot on about that overall dress - make that now!!!"  Well, I listened!  I began to wash the fabric, trace/cut the pattern pieces, and put this together.  My little bit chose the fabrics, and we thought it would be fun to mix in a solid color to offset the pink leopard.

Both fabrics are cotton knits that behave in different ways.  The leopard print has a bit more stretch (Denver Fabrics), while the solid black is more stable with little stretch and recovery (Fabricmart Fabrics).  I do not remember offhand what size I traced, but I did not make any adjustments.  My daughter is almost 8, and she wears the Ottobre size appropriate for her age.

Here are some close-up picks:

Once again, the superb drafting and instructions of Ottobre patterns shines through!  I absolutely love the facing of these overalls, and the clean way the front and back pieces join together.  Though there were a lot of instructions, it was explained in a clear enough way for me to understand.  I would recommend this for a confident beginner and up sewer.  

The BEST part of all, though--I attached SNAPS for the first time, lol!! And it was...EASY!  In fact, it was so easy, I now want to apply snaps everywhere.  Truly, I didn't know it would be such an easy thing to accomplish, and I am glad to have learned it.  I used the tutorial by Closet Case Files found here, and the rest was simple.  I already had the hardware kit for my Anorak, so I used the tools from that to put on snaps I purchased from Hobby Lobby.

A note on snaps: there are two types--spring and ring.  I used ring, but the downside to that is that the crushed metal shows through on the wrong side.  For a cleaner look, I will use spring snaps for my next project.  For this dress, it didn't matter much because I need more functionality than wearability. However, that is a good thing to keep in mind when purchasing snaps.

As you can see, my sweetie is one pleased little girl!  She wore this to school for teacher appreciation week because her teacher's favorite color is pink.  She told me another girl at school asked her where she got her clothes from, to which she responded, "my mom made them."  The little girl then replied, "Wow, I need your mom to make me one too!" Ha!!!!!!  That made me smile!

Not a day goes by that I am not elated to sew for my kids.  And this garment brings me a little closer to my goal of making projects for them too.

My next post will include my latest project, Simplicity 8337, a cold-shoulder top I finished for Ms. Faye's TOPS THAT POP sewalong.  I am recovering from a stomach flu right now, and as soon as I get pics with it on, you will get to see it. I look forward to giving you the details soon!!

Stay sew-filled!!