One of my goals for 2015 is to do some garment sewing during the week. I tend to do all my etsy and embroidery work while the kiddos are at school and then leave the weekends for sewing: essentially treating it more as a hobby. But to be honest with myself, if I really want to grow a business teaching others to sew, I’ve got to start doing some more sewing myself. So I’ve decided to treat my sewing more as part of my work then just an extension of a hobby.
That said, this weekend I did pick up these Colette Juniper pants….again…and again failed miserably. I put these together like a dream until it was time for the waistband I have just hit a wall over and over again. I’m like Dobby the house elf from Harry Potter.
So I threw them back in my WIP box and decided to sew something a little more brainless.
I had stashed away a simple pajama pattern and this flannel that I bought like eons ago to make some pj’s for my chick. Good thing because I couldn’t even hem the sleeves as she has almost outgrown this pattern. Waaaahhhh! But the flannel is super soft and it’s a nightgown so who cares if the sleeves aren’t hemmed right?
Next on my list was the mini penny knit dress by Kitschy Coo. I bought this pattern towards the end of last year and I had read gobs of great reviews about it. My chick is all about comfort dressing so I knew that if this pattern worked out then we were in business as far as making a closet full of knit dresses for her instead of buying out Land’s End.
I found this super cute owl knit at JoAnns no less (actually this one day I bought like 5 different prints of this amazing knit collection they had that I haven’t seen since). This dress was a dream to put together. The more I sew with knits the more I never want to sew cottons again. They are so much more forgiving – but then again I have a Lane Raglan that I screwed up because I did a lousy job on the neckband. I digress.
I did read a few reviews that this dress fits a little small, but on my skinny minnie the 7/8 was a perfect fit – except for the sleeves. This is a genetic default in that my mom, myself and my daughter must have really short arms, we are like a T-rex. I really need to go back and shorten them, but she wanted to wear it to school today so I went ahead and let her go with it.
Overall, I love this pattern but I will say the directions aren’t the clearest I’ve read or even seen presented. I had really hoped for the cost of the pattern that they might have been a little better written and honestly the photos are super tiny. I read most of my pdf patterns via dropbox on my ipad when I’m sewing and this is probably one of the hardest ones I have had to read. If you are newer to sewing knits, I’m not sure I would recommend this one. I would go sew up a Lane Raglan first and get the hand of the neckband and armbands because she does a fabulous job explaining how all that works – then come back and sew this dress because it’s super cute.