Ishi Dress

Remember the finish-a-long from October?  It is hosted on many blogs, but it was Marci who contacted me to let me know I was one of the winners!  I think Trina hates me for all the things I've won (the fat quarters for the Woven Star, a jelly roll for the Jelly Dot, and more recently some Christmas layer cakes), so I decided to share my gift certificate to Imagine Gnats.  She got fabric, and I got more patterns: Alder skirt for me and Ishi dress for the girls.

I had seen the Ishi dress pattern long before I bought it, and thought it looked like a lot of fun.  I was happy to have the opportunity to use it to make some as Easter dresses for my girls.  As I sewed though, I was happier that I didn't have to pay for the pattern because there were some tricky parts.

-The weight of fabric is important.  The blue is a lighter weight, so I feel like Cupcake's dress loses a bit of the shape.  And the pockets (plus lining) are heavier, so hemming that was ridiculous and didn't go well at all. 

-Those princess seams are a bugger.

-Set-in sleeves are not my favorite.  I did manage to do two of them without puckers though.

-Zippers. Yuck. This was my first time actually following a pattern to put zippers in an article of clothing.  Add the lining in there, and it was a bit finicky.  I did Cupcake's dress first, and sewed too close to the zipper so the fabric keeps getting caught.  At least I learned from my mistake so Snowflake's zipper runs smooth.

I let myself get distracted by a lot of other projects in the middle of making these, but I forced myself to get them finished in time for Easter.  After trying the size 10 on Cupcake I worried it looked too big (but not too long), she loved it anyway and didn't want to take it off.  And I'm glad I made the size 2T for Snowflake, because it fit her perfectly. The longer they wore them, the more I liked them.

-Cupcake loves sheep, and I had just picked up some fat quarters with sheep on them.  I was just barely able to eek out the pockets from that fat quarter!  Yay!

-It was fun to pick out a variety of fabrics - that sunshiney yellow! - even if I would pair things up differently in the future.  (I like less contrast between the side and the pocket.)

-Can we talk about those pockets?  Although Cupcake said it was too hard to reach them, she certainly loved having them.  Because it was EASTER!  She had a place to put all her eggs and candy!  I felt like such a genius when I noticed that.  

So in the end, I was happy I made them,  It was a pattern I had been wanting to try, and the girls got new dresses.  Will I make it again?  I'm not sure.  There are other patterns that I would repeat first, but this one may pop up again in the future.