The Tinny Dress - Flipped / Handmade Frenzy

The Tinny Dress - Flipped

Thursday, August 22, 2013

I may ~~or may not~~ be a procrastinator... I squeeked in under the wire with my pattern flip for this month's Flip This Pattern over at Frances Suzanne! And it was a good one. I had sooo many ideas running through my head for ways to flip the Tinny dress, and I actually have another one planned that I want to make for O's birthday dress (which is in 2 weeks!!!). As you can tell, I just didn't have it together enough to get them both done for the series. :(

In the end, I settled on this "flip". And I'm in love!!!

What I did to flip it:

Eliminated the separate skirt and made the dress an a-line.
Lengthened the sleeve by 2 inches.
Made the sleeve cuff to hang down instead of fold up.

*Side note: I asked her to turn around so I could take a photo of the back. She happily obliged but had to make sure puppy turned around too :)*

I kept all the recognizable Tinny features since the dress in it's original form is just so great. The peter pan collar, the notched cuffs and zipper in the back.

To make the dress an a-line, I simply started at the armpit and drew an angled line as long as I wanted the dress. (I made it the same as the 2t pattern length - perfect!) Super simple, but I LOVE the result!

The fabrics I had in my stash. For the main dress I used a chambray that I picked up on clearance at Joann. Funny story (or not), I bought it because it had these tiny cute little purple flowers all over it. Don't see purple flowers? Me either. I pre-washed it and when it came out of the dryer the flowers were gone! Doesn't say much for the print job, but the fabric itself is nice.

The sleeves are a cotton quilting fabric, also from Joann (actually all of the fabrics are from there!). The collar and cuffs are a lovely soft and drapey linen. I have been hoarding this yellow linen but thought that this dress was worthy of using a bit of it :)

A lesson learned though. Linen gets really thick, really fast when multiple layers are involved. Probably not a genius choice for a collar, especially not a for a first time collar maker. ;) But, it worked out!

This girl is such a little mommy. Stuffed animals and baby dolls of all kinds are mothered by her :)

A close up of the details. I SO love that peter pan collar!!

Kinda love her little baby chin too.

And she's in love with her "baby" of the moment :)

I love the back too. I'm SO happy with how the zipper turned out. Zippers still just make me a little queasy when sewing them into garments. This zipper was in my stash from the Skirt Week winnings. They are from Zipit Etsy shop. I can't say enough about how wonderful the shop and the zippers are! They have all my zipper business from now on :)

And because I'm always curious about sizing... I used the 18mo bodice. O is 23 1/2 months old and average size (although her shoulders may be a little slight) and the fit is PERFECT. The neck is perfect on her, I have problems with things wanting to fall off her shoulders but this stays in place. The width across the chest and the arm openings couldn't be better. I think she'll be able to wear it for a while too. I lengthened it to the 2t length.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you like the flip as much as O and I do! (She didn't want to take it off, score!)

Happy Sewing!