I've been trying to sew pieces for Rylee that go with orphans in her wardrobe. I'm a total sucker for discount and clearance shopping and I tend to buy things just because they are cheap. She has a pair of Gymboree teapot leggings I got for something like $2 but they have been languishing with no match.
I bought THE most beautiful fabric from The Fabric Fairy. They say it's made of bamboo with 8% lycra but I suspect it's actually spun from sunshine and puppy kisses. It's gorgeous to sew and moves beautifully. Just holding it makes me happy and it was embarrassingly difficult to throw out the scraps. I think I might make myself something out of it.
I used McCalls 6155 and I agree with the comments of the first reviewer at that link. The cut is very pretty but I hated the neckline, which was folded over and sewn down. The pattern also calls for interfacing and putting buttons in the back. That sort of misses the point of a knit in my world, so if I sew this again I'll just cut the back on the fold at the center and use ribbing at the neck.
To embellish the front I bought some pre-made fabric buttons on Etsy. Not because these buttons are hard to make, but because it was cheaper than buying this obviously awesome teacup fabric. More precisely, it was most likely cheaper than starting a hunt for this fabric that would certainly have lead to a purchase of at least five other fabrics.
I made size 2 and the fit is absolutely enormous on her. She's tall, lean and lanky so the shoulders in particular are huge. She runs around rocking the Flashdance shoulder reveal and you can see by the pooling of the fabric how long the sleeves are on her. But it's wearable now and will probably need a matching set of leggings soon since she's sprouting out of pants every time I turn around.
I've quit telling her to smile in pictures and tell her to laugh instead. It makes for a better shot and also gets me poses like this that tell me quite clearly what kind of teenager I'll have.
