Girl’s dress inspired by Katwise

I have visited “the whimsical world” of Katwise (internet world…). I just looked up the word “whimsical” on Merriam-Webster in the thesaurus-category. There, you first see related words, and thereafter “near antonyms”, i.e. opposite meaning. In the “whimsical” category, I guess we’ll find Katwise, and in the opposite category, you’ll find me (down-to-earth, rational, stable). She’s a hippie, I’m not. At all. But somehow, I often find myself making garments that are kind of hippie-like, and I like them. Katwise’s style fascinates me, and her tutorial is enjoyable reading!

Very much inspired by her garments and her tutorial, I made this dress for my four year old girl yesterday. And I am very much pleased with the result. The yellow colour wasn’t acually the plan, but when I told the girl I was making an purple dress for her, she replied “I want it to be purple and yellow, mom! The original plan was belt in burnt orange, but yellow it was to be…

Making of the dress:

According to Katwise’s tutorial, she doesn’t use pattern when she makes herself a sweatercoat, but more like cuts sweaters to pieces, and ads one piece after another until it fits allright. I have used pattern for the bodice (kjoleliv) and belt. Then I calculated how wide the top of a panel had to be and how wide at least I wanted the bottom to be. When I cut the panels, I made sure that the width at the top was exact,  but the rest was not exact. I trimmed the panels to equal lengths before adding the rows at the bottom. The last row is doublefolded fabric (single jersey).

To get the Katwise-style, all the serger/overlock seams are on the outside. The first thing my husband said when seeing the dress, was “but you put it on inside out?!” Hehe, yes, maybe so, but it’s supposed to be like that ;-)

I wanted to ad some details, and found the yellow beads my daugther persuaded me to add to the shopping basket, once she came along to the fabric store. Acually, it was when I found these beads in the drawer that I decided to make the belt yellow. Happy that the seams were supposed to be on the outside, it was very easy to make cords! 

The loose ends of the cords are only cut before sewing with the overlock. After sewing, I weaved in the loose overlock tail into the seam with a large-eyed blunt needle (butt stoppenål) before tying the end off. Maybe you have noticed that the beads are not all at the bottom of the cords? Well, they were to begin with, but I was so annoyed by the clicking sound of the beads constantly bumbing into eachother, so I moved them :D

Pattern: Bodice pattern is drawn from Aldrich’s “Classic bodice block”.

Fabrics and notions: Various stretch jersey/ribb from Stoff og Stil and Jydsk Stoflager. The bodice (kjoleliv) and the darkest row at bottom of skirt is made from thick cotton jersey (avklippskorga på Stoff og Stil). The lightest row is made from double-folded single jersey (Stoff og Stil nokre år sidan) Cords: Striped cotton single jersey from Midha Enterprise, Oslo. Beads: Stoff og Stil.

And the girl… She was so happy about the dress, that she spontaneously asked to wear it in the Kindergarten/barnehagen today!