Thursday, May 5, 2016

A green giraffe dress! With buttons!

My niece's favorite animal is the giraffe.  And she is currently fascinated with buttons.  She recently asked her mom for a green giraffe dress with buttons.  So they went to the fabric store to look for green giraffe fabric, but the closest thing they could find was a flannel with yellow giraffes.

It just so happens that I also love giraffes, and I happened to have in my stash a cut of fabric with green and blue giraffes on it, together with a coordinating polka-dot.
They became an Oliver + S Jump Rope dress.  I made view A, in size 2T with some extra length - I cut the bodice on the 3T line, and then added some more to the skirt length.  I think it was at least 2", but I wasn't super-precise about it and I don't quite remember exactly what I did.
The dress has SEVEN buttons.  Three functional buttons on the placket, plus one on each sleeve tab and one on each pocket.  My niece was thrilled.  She immediately asked me to help her put it on (thank goodness it fit, and has some length for her to grow into) and mentioned several times later in the day that her dress has giraffes on it.
I've never sewn a placket before, but it wasn't too bad!  I used the Sew Mama Sew sew-along and it was very helpful.  I also asked for help estimating fabric requirements in the Oliver+S forums, and Nicole and the other ladies there were very helpful!

All in all, I am thrilled with how this little dress turned out and I had a lot of fun sewing it!

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