Amazingly, over a week later Juniper's favorite color is still yellow (though she tells me that soon it will be purple, but just not yet). The best thing about yellow is that it isn't pink, but it also looks great on her. To mark the momentous occasion of her first new favorite color in two years, I made her a yellow dress.

I used this tutorial for turning a men's dress shirt into a girl's dress. (Thanks for sending me the link, Mike!) I found one of Jim's old yellow shirts in a box full of biz-cas clothes, and from the looks of things, he never plans on wearing them under normal working conditions again anyway:


And then I spent an afternoon turning it into this:

I used an old cloth napkin for the waistband. I liked the scalloped edge, and it was also the only other fabric I had on hand that was yellow.

I put the finishing touches on the dress after Juniper was in bed. When I was done, I hung it up inside her room on the door knob. At 6:30 the next morning, I heard the sound of her feet pounding down the hallway and she climbed into our bed before I could even open my eyes. I covered her with the blanket, like I always do, and settled in for another ten minutes of sleep. A few minutes later, I heard a giggle, and opened my eyes for the first time to ask her if she'd seen the dress in her room. Her eyes were wide -- not a speck of sleepiness left -- and she just nodded. I closed my eyes again. A few minutes later I pulled back the blanket, and sure enough, there she was -- fully dressed, with white socks pulled up to her knees. She giggled some more and jumped out of bed, so proud of herself for surprising me and so happy with the dress.

I think purple might have to wait a while.

[there is a flickr group for this dress. It's so fun to see what everyone has done.]

Previous Project

Two weeks ago in this space I noted that crafting isn't any cheaper than shopping, and that sometimes your materials add up to more than you would spend to buy a similar garment already made. I didn't get into any of the global economic realities or the emotional satisfaction of you get from creating things, but comments to that post---and the similar discussion started by the pattern-maker on her own blog---made me think more about what I'm spending on supplies and allowed me to evaluate why I enjoy making things.

Without consciously setting out to make a project that was cost-effective, I did it this week. I made pants for Gram from a pattern and fabric that I already had. The fabric was from an old suit coat from Jim's thrift store lawyer days. It was taking up space and it was completely useless. Here it is on him the other day before I took scissors to it:

He wants me to point out that yes, he's growing a beard again, and also that jackets like this are always very cheap at thrift stores, sometimes as little as a dollar each, and that often the really huge ones are the cheapest and they provide the most fabric. That doesn't really matter to me, because for a decade he's been buying up suit jackets in crazy prints that he will never wear. I have enough suit jackets to keep Gram in pants until he starts kindergarten.

Gram grows out of clothes pretty quickly, and his pants seem to be the first things to get too tight or too short. I loved the way that his oliver + s pajama pants came out, and I thought that with a non-pajama fabric, the pattern could be used to make regular pants. I was right! Here they are:

Starting with the oliver + s pajama pattern, I omitted the trim at the bottom of the pants. Rookie Moms has a free pant pattern, which I haven't tried, but I bet you could make similar pants with their instructions.

Placing the pattern on the coat and cutting it out was the hardest part. Suit coats have lining and various layers inside, so I had to mess around with the coat to take out the layers I didn't want (I left some of the lining). I cut the coat so that the original side pocket would be a pocket on Gram's leg, and I used the bottom hem of the coat for the bottom of his pants so that hem was already finished.

I could have easily made two pant legs with pockets from the jacket, but let's just say a critical cutting error meant they ended up with a cool asymmetrical look.

Sewing the pants together was pretty easy. Just as I was just finishing them up, I got a visit from my personal Tim Gunn, who brushed the hair from his eyes and fastidiously looked over my garment. I should now note that my stay-at-home father husband wasn't too excited about having kids back in the day and it was only after I promised him he could dress his children like Edwardian street urchins and teach them to speak like Dickens characters that he really softened to the idea. Well, apparently it was time to pay the piper.

Jim pleaded with me to put patches on the pants. Hobo couture, he said (he went through a hobo phase back in 2002-2003). I was reluctant and ready to go to bed, but relented (not unlike what happened on a certain fateful night back in May 2004) and got out my fusible interfacing and appliqued some patches on the pants.

I just learned how to applique using fusible web last week (for an upcoming project) and wow, it is incredible and I am adding wonder under to the list of things I love.

I sewed a zig-zag stitch around each patch, which would have been much easier if I'd done it before sewing the pants together, but it worked out fine. I only sewed the legs together five times. Thank god for seam rippers.

It was exciting to make little boy clothes. It wasn't until I sat down to cut that I realized how sick I am of pink. And I have to hand it to Jim -- the patches make the pants. And the best part about hobo couture is that when someone notices loose threads or lopsided stitching, you get to say, "Of course, that's intentional."

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