Juggling Jott Jump Rope Dress

"And, now, come to this spot

Where the spotlight is hot

And you'll see in the spotlight

A Juggling Jott

Who can juggle some stuff

You might think he could not...

Such as twenty-two question marks,

Which is a lot.

Also forty-four commas

And, also, one dot!

That's the kind of Circus McGurkus I've got!"

Dr Seuss - If I Ran the Circus

This dress certainly has more than forty-four commas, and many more dots! 

I first saw this fabric about three years ago and loved the idea of a punctuation dress. I bought the fabric an embarrassingly long time ago (from Urban Sew) and stashed it away. With the Oliver + S monochrome challenge underway it seemed the perfect time to finally sew it up.

I didn't get a lot of enthusiasm from A when she first saw it, but once I got "If I Ran the Circus" off the bookshelf and read her the passage about the Juggling Jott, and pointed out all her commas and dots, she was all over it. 

Personally, I love it. The pattern is the Oliver + S Jump Rope dress and it never fails to please. This is my third version of View A (here's the first and second) and I've made view B three times before as well (one, two and three). I've also used the pattern to make a girl's polo shirt and borrowed the placket instructions for a boy's polo shirt. If you want to feel like a sewing rock star then sew this placket. You are guaranteed to be doing the happy dance around your sewing table and feeling very smug.

The details of the dress pattern are a bit lost in the print from a distance, so let's have some close ups shots:

The very first dress I made for A was this pattern. I made a size 2, simply because I could not see myself dressing a non ambulatory baby in such a detailed dress. When I'd finished, it looked enormous and I could barely imagine her ever growing into it.

But she did eventually grow (oh those first 20 months seemed to go on for ever) and she wore it until she was almost 4 years old. It's a fairly generously sized pattern, but at the same time it's one of those dresses that is best put on by putting the kids hands in first then arms above their head to bring it down and get the shoulders in.

Anyway, without measuring her, I randomly nominated a size 4 with the skirt length extended to the size 5 line. And it's a perfect fit.

While I'm prone to turning my nose up at quilting cottons, whenever I do sew one I find it refreshingly easy to work with. This Moda fabric behaved very nicely and while it's a coarser fabric to the Art Gallery quilting cottons that I last used, it drapes nicely and still feels soft.

I'm kind of hoping that she'll choose to wear this dress to one of her school orientation mornings next month. If she's anything like her brother she won't be able to stop herself from pointing out which are the commas, and which are the full stops.  And that's the kind of nerdy grammar stuff that makes my heart sing. :)

Summer has come early, and somewhat ferociously, so we headed down to the beach to play and take some pictures. At first she wanted to hold my hand to get from one rock to another, but within a few minutes she was leaping and following P as best she could. It's amazing to watch those physical skills get practiced and the confidence that comes with it. Of course they both ended up with wet shoes, but hey, it was warm.

If I had my choice between sitting and watching organised sport on a Saturday morning, or watching rock hopping I know which I'd choose. If only the dead sea birds didn't smell so bad.

Double Gauze Playdate Dress

While I had a big enough pile of black and white fabrics to play with, once the Oliver + S monochrome sewalong started I kept seeing more black and white fabrics everywhere I looked.

I couldn't resist some double gauze from Spotlight. I had long wanted to sew the Playdate dress but could never figure out what I wanted to do with the yoke section, with this double gauze I found my answer and just had to make it immediately!

The Playdate dress has this lovely yoke. It is most often sewn with a white yoke, patterned dress fabric and the two frills with a row of buttons down the middle. Completely adorable, but often a bit too old fashioned or church-y for my taste.

Of course, Brittany of A Stitch A Day had already made the white yoked version that I really did like (she always makes the dress I wish I'd thought of!) and I was most particularly fond of this other chambray version that Liesl herself made. - I love the raw edged frill and Japanese pattern vibe of that dress.

The double gauze was perfectly reversible and that gave me the simple solution to the yoke. I would have been tempted to leave it plain, or maybe pin an off-centre raw edged fabric flower (like this one), but A liked the ruffles idea.

The flat piping is kind of subtle for being black but it is better for being there and defining the yoke's edge.

In among the stash of  individual buttons salvaged from old garments that my mother in law sends my way, was the perfect button.

The double gauze was nice to sew, although a little shifty at times and the edgestitching on the yoke definitely isn't my best work.  But I'm happy to say it washes and wears well, and feels so fluffy and light, it must be a delight to wear.

Of course now I think why on earth did I wait so long to make this dress. It is an absolutely darling pattern. The fit through the shoulders and chest is perfect and then the dress has this lovely coccoon shaped skirt.

The inverted pleat of the dress front is echoed at the sleeves where they tuck into the cuff. Just gorgeous. Plus there are hidden in-seam pockets which you can fill with treasures, or sand...

Now that I know how much I love the shape and fit of the dress I will find a way to make this pattern again. I can see myself being tempted to do cross stitch or embroidery on the yoke but I think the one I will love to see her wear would be an all chambray version.

I made a straight size 5 with no modifications whatsoever. I haven't measured her in quite a while so I'm just going on her being a relatively tall, healthy sized  four and half year old. Not very  precise of me, I know.

I'm very glad for the monochrome challenge as otherwise I would have continued to let this lovely pattern marinade on the shelf. It's out of print now, but you may find paper versions on Ebay, or it's available as digital download pattern.

There's more black and white to come, just as last month was all animals, this month is Octonochrome!

Carnival of the Animals: Part I - The Zebra

The sewing around here has definitely taken a wild turn with lots of animal print, and here's why: Tomorrow night, the kids and I are going to the Playhouse to see The Carnival of the Animals.

It's opening night and kids are invited to dress up as an animal. So, I let the kids pick which animal they'd like to be, and then set out to make some theatre worthy clothes to represent their chosen animal.

First up is our little zebra ballerina:

The brief for this dress was exactly that; a zebra ballerina dress. It had to be obviously zebra, and as sticky-outey as possible in a dress that isn't actually a tutu. Beyond those requirements she gave me free rein.

The dress is my favourite party dress (one, two, three and four), the Fairy Tale dress by Oliver + S. I'd like to say I could make this dress with my eyes closed now, but I always seem to press the waist seam allowances the wrong way and then attach the zipper before realising my mistake and ripping it out again. The instructions are perfectly clear, I just seem to like making the same mistakes over and over.

Even though it was sewn twice it's still an invisible zipper that I can be happy with. I couldn't possibly try to match the patterns at the back after cutting the fabric to centre the front pattern. But I can't complain about how the bodice part lined up as it looks every bit as good as if I had tried. Freaky sewing luck strikes again!

Initially I searched online for a zebra fabric. There are a few quilting cottons that looked OK, but I was holding out hope for something that had a bigger print rather than tiny repeats of an irregular stripe. I was also hoping for a luxe or shiny looking fabric.

Most local fabric stores I tried were devoid of shiny zebra print fabric until I stumbled on this stuff on Sydney Rd. The selvedge has "100% pure silky italian style" written in a font that's reminiscent of African stick figures. There's nothing silk-like or stylish about it, it is pure ethno-polyester and it is perfect! Since I've made this dress I've seen a zebra print cotton sateen in Spotlight, so maybe the shiny zebra is an upcoming trend.

To get as much "poofiness" in the skirt as possible I chose the cheap, stiff net stuff rather than the nice soft bridal tulle. Then I used three layers of it rather than one as per the pattern.

Gathering that much netting to the skirt was not easy and it took a lot of patience not to snap the bobbin threads. I've heard dental floss is good for gathering this kind of thing and I wish I'd remembered to try it. Once I'd sewn the lining to the dress at the waistband the seam allowances wanted to stick up too much. I ended up sewing the tulle seam allowances down to the lining. Bit like understitching them. Exceedingly fiddly to do but it worked to keep the skirt lying nicely.

The lining is a simple white voile cotton from the same shop. I think I spent a total of $25 on fabric. I overbought on the pure silky stylish zebra fabric so that I'd have enough for the skirt panels. However the fabric was wide enough that I could cut the skirt in one piece and not have to match panels of print. Sadly that means I have quite a bit of zebra fabric leftover. I may have to "lose" it somehow. :)

The dress is mostly view B, but without the giant sash and bow. I would have been happy to have no belt but A requested the little belt and bow like her other Fairy Tale dress. It's a size 5 but with about 3" added to the skirt length to bring it down to knee length and balance out the big print on the skirt.

We were all going to have animal masks to match our outfits (yep, I'm getting in on the animal dress ups too!), but I found trying to glue this fabric to anything was impossible.

Instead, I turned to the wonderful tutorial by Marie-Michelle on the Oliver + S blog and made a Dior Rose to attach to a headband.

Those little rose buds were fun to make. I made it more time consuming than necessary by doing it all by hand, but I caught up with some TV watching while hand sewing.

There was a sneak peek of this dress on the Oliver + S blog as we're having a monochrome sew along. I've got some more black and white things cut out and I'm starting the sewing. But there will be more animals to introduce first....

Be sure to come back soon for Carnival of the Animals: Part II