To say I was excited about this one would be an understatement.
You see, I take these two little beauties to ballet and tap every Tuesday and more often than not their practice room is shivering cold. Add the practical aspect in with the fact that these are just too darn cute and I jumped at the chance to make them each one.
And my models jumped at the chance to show off their moves at the barre.
There may or may not have been payment in the form of gummy butterflies involved.
I made each of them a 5T. You can see the difference in fit on the two girls. My Bug would be on the large side of 5T. Most of her clothes now are in the 5/6 range. Ugh. Have you tried shopping in the "big girls" department? That's a rant for another day. At any rate, the Bug's friend, K has a more slight build and is pretty much a more standard 5T.
So K has a bit of room to grow, but that's o.k. since they both INSIST on growing. Sigh. . .
This is the first one I made so I went entirely "by the book". I found the sleeve length to be a bit long so on the next one I turned up the hem an additional 1/2" and that took care of it.
The Bug picked out this really thin, soft, tissue weight purple knit. I'm sure it is super comfortable but it was a beast to sew. Thankfully there were hints and tips apleanty in the pattern, which reminded me to increase my stitch size if I was having problems.
Funny how sometimes I need to be reminded even of the simple things.
But that's one of the things that make Heidi & Finn patterns so great. They are very simple and modern and they do an exceptional job of photographing each step in the process. So even though the instructions themselves are incredibly clear, for more visual people, you also have that visual cue.
This was a quick and simple sew.
It's hard to say how long it took since I never sit down and sew a whole garment in one sitting. But it was no more than two hours. . . and that includes time spent pouring over the pattern itself looking for grammatical and spelling errors. So I'd say, for a confident seamstress you could whip one up in an hour and a half easily. But I think the pattern would be easy enough for even an advanced beginner, someone with a bit of experience sewing knit.
I highly recommend this pattern and any of the others by
Heidi & Finn.
I just realized all three are purple. ha! Total coincidence. Perhaps that does have a bit to do with "favorite" status in the 5 year old's book.
The pattern will be released soon in
big girl sizes too, so keep an eye out!
~Lindsay
