Prisma becomes Rosie!

Pattern - Love Notions Prisma for girls
Skill Level - Confident Beginner
Fabric - cotton/spandex from l'oiseau fabrics
Skills - colour blocking, stripe matching

My friend's granddaughter is a voracious reader (actually "listener"!) and has an amazing imagination - you never know who she actually is from day to day.  Her mother told me that she's enjoying the series about Rosie Revere the Engineer and asked if I could make her a Rosie dress for her upcoming birthday.

As I was not familiar with that reading series, her mother sent me a picture and right away I could see that Love Notions' Prisma would be absolutely perfect!  And since mother was taking care of the head scarf, all I needed was white, black and red knit fabric.

Rosie's dress is very plain with black trim at the neck and sleeves but with alternate black and red stripes at the bottom of the dress.  Now that part would need planning!

I decided on 1" stripes joined with .25" seams so each stripe would be 1.5" wide.  The bottom black stripe would be 2" wide to account for the hem.  And then I would have to add 1.5" to the body above the stripes to account for the loss that the seams cause.  I taped the pattern pieces to my cutting mat and drew lines for the stripes, then cut for the addition to the body.  I was careful to write the colour on each stripe.

I also marked the stripes with numbers and F and B for front and back.  The Prisma version I was sewing is the A-line view, so all of the stripes would be different lengths and the outsides would have a slight slant to them.  I also made the hem straight instead of the slight curve to simplify things.

Then I placed all the pattern pieces with their fabrics.

Time to cut everything out.  The stripes were easy to cut - one at a time, starting with the largest and using the straight side of the previous cut for the next one.

Once everything was cut out, I placed all the pieces in their respective task.

I started with the stripes, going from bottom up and now you can see why numbers were important!  I serged the stripes together with a .25" seam.  And as I serged on each stripe, I steam pressed the seam down.

It's easy to get confused when sewing the stripes together (ask me how I know!) so here's a tip.  You are sewing the long side of the shorter strip to the short side of the longer strip.  When you do that, you should see a triangle of the stripe on the under side.

With all the stripes serged together, then they were serged to the body.  Now it was time to assemble the dress.

Front sewn to back and sleeves in place, the side seam needs to be sewn.  This is the tricky part!  I carefully pinned front to back and then with a longer stitch, sewed the striped section together with my sewing machine to make sure the stripes stayed put.

I did the rest of the assembly with my serger, but when I got to the striped section, I made sure the serging line was just outside of the straight stitching line.

A steam press and we're ready for the final bits - neckband, bands for the ends of the short sleeves and hemming.

I'm pretty pleased with how well it turned out and I hope "Rosie" likes it too!  Since it's a birthday present, I don't have a modelled photo, but if I get one, I'll update this post.

One final touch - a label which I purchased from Love Notions - which seemed totally appropriate!

If you don't already have this wonderful pattern for girls, you can get it from my affiliate link below.

Love Notions Prisma Dress sizes 2T to 16

Vanguard Kit To The Rescue - Again!

My grandson is currently going through a stage in which he insists on wearing short sleeved shirts and shorts - and it's winter!  He's deep into mountain biking and I've made him pants that he will actually wear - the Moto Maxx pants with knee reinforcement, made in Discovery Trekking Outfitters' scuba.  He loves the fabric and the sporty look and now has two pairs of them to keep him happy - and warm!

Moto Maxx pants in black and grey scuba

But shirts are a problem.  His favourite shirt is a short sleeved one I made him to match shirts I made for his father's team.  I used Discovery Trekking's Polartec Delta and my grandson loves it. 

That's my grandson on the left.

Now he wants plain shirts and prefers athletic material.  He agreed that he'd wear a long-sleeved Vanguard shirt if it was made with that fabric - with some jazz added!  And of course, he wasn't interested in any of the amazing colour blocking options this pattern has - he wanted spiral stripes down the arms!

I did a test sample in the fabric to see if it would work first.  Always test a new idea!  And it did work, so now to make the shirt.

I had quite a bit of the grey Polartec Delta, but not much of the apple green, so I decided on stripes for the arms and neckband, but to leave the sleeves uncuffed so I added 2" to the sleeve length.  I wanted the green just to be an accent.  Polartec Delta is an amazing fabric - it wicks moisture away from the body but keeps you cool and prevents smelly bacteria odors.  Perfect for my hot-bodied grandson.

I cut out all my pieces, then planned how I'd put the stripes on the sleeves and measured to see how long the stripes needed to be.  And bravely decided on two stripes per sleeve!

I cut the stripes .5" wide

I tried the stripes out on the sleeve to see how it would look.

I marked the stripe ends with pins and drew a line on each sleeve for the first stripe.

Then I applied glue to the back of the first stripes and gently laid them in place just over the line to hide it, being careful not to stretch them.

Once the first stripes were in place, I drew another line .5" away for the second stripe.

When both stripes were in place and glued down, I pinned for extra security and moved to my coverstitch machine.  The coverstitch is a stretchy stitch.  A long straight stitch might work if you don't have a coverstitch machine, as long as you stretched the fabric slightly as you sewed but it might not be that easy to do with such narrow strips of fabric.  Perhaps a zig zag would be better.

It probably would have made my job easier if I'd threaded with a matching thread, but I decided to go for contrast, so it was important to be as accurate within the stripe as possible.  You achieve this by concentrating on the front of the foot.  Don't look at the needles as you'll stray for sure!  Concentrate on the front of the foot.

My coverstitching wasn't perfect, but on a spiral stripe it will be hard to pick out the imperfections!  I gave the stripes a quick steam press and then it was just just constructing the shirt.  And the Vanguard is such a quick sew!  In no time, I had my grandson's shirt ready for him.

The Vanguard Kit is an amazing pattern and probably the children's pattern that I use the most.  It will work for girls as well as boys and has so many options in it that each shirt is a unique one.  If you don't already have this pattern (or the Moto Maxx) you can get them through my affiliate links below.

Love Notions Vanguard Kit Sizes 2T - 14

Love Notions Moto Maxx Set Sizes 2T - 14