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Guest Sewist: Heidi
Pattern: Essential Dress + Lafayette Ave. Leggings
Hello Fellow Rainsters!!
It's hard to believe that another school season is upon us and summer is winding to a close. For some of us that brings great relief and excitement, for some sadness and for others fond memories of when our children were still home and young enough to have first days of school.
As I reflect back on those days I am kind of envious but then I am in the stage when I can take up the excitement of others and relieve some of the back to school shopping for my daughter while giving my granddaughter "playground" worthy outfits.
I started sewing on my mom's lap at the age of three. She had a knee power lever and at times would just have me run her needless machine eventually moving up to piercing lines drawn on paper...and on and on. By 6th grade I was sewing all my own clothes. I have now been sewing for over 63 years. I did stop clothing construction for a long time because I was frustrated with proper pattern fitting and finding quality on trend fabrics. The finding of Indi pattern designers and online fabric stores opened up a whole new world to me and tanked my budget! I am very well dressed now as I attend my therapy sessions at my machines!!
So why should one mash patterns together when they could just buy one already designed? It could be to save money, to save space and time with printing and assembling paper that take over, or it could be just because you can and this frees up money for the custom fabric (a rabbit hole I have fallen into). Whatever the reason is, pattern mashing is fun. Onward to the good stuff.
I selected a drifit AK for the for the skirt/shorts combo and an AK for the top. I used the Essential Dress and the Lafayette Ave leggings patterns to come up with this mash. I use a projector which I love but learned that I need to take good notes on what I did since I have no altered paper pattern to refer to. I projected the bodice of the Essential Dress but straighten the sides and lengthen it to a shirt length. I think this would also be cute in a crop length. I sewed it according to the pattern and just did a turn over hem. I used a custom AK that had strong recovery so I really should have sized up one size. Keep your fabric recovery in mind when selecting your size.
I wanted to make a skirt/shorts combo that would allow my sweet granddaughter to do all the carefree playing she wanted on the playground. I projected the skirt from the Essential Dress Pattern. I knew my granddaughter loves to twirl (what little girl or big girl doesn't) so I selected the full circle skirt and cut. It wasn't until I saw the outfit on her that I learned that I should have shortened the skirt by the width of the waist band. She is on the fence about my shortening it at the moment. I sewed the side seams and set it aside.
I cut the Lafayette Ave leggings at the shorts length and the waistband of the pattern without any modifications. I assembled the combo by placing the right side of the shorts inside the skirt facing the wrong side of the skirt. I serged this together to keep everything in place for when I attached the waist band. I quartered both the skirt/shorts combo and the waistband and assembled them. The skirt fit perfectly into the waistband.
As you can see, she could tackle the playground with confidence! This was a really fun and easy mashup. I hope you are inspired to give it a go.
Best of sewing,
Heidi
