so, hey, it’s the last week of this Project Run & Play madness, which means… signature style! for this challenge, I thought about what I love to sew for my girls, and what my girls love to wear. there are a few basic must-haves that make an outfit successful around here: comfortable for play, bold prints and colors, easy to care for, and fun to wear.
Brenna’s dress is a lined woven tumble tee dress with an added drop-waist ruffle. that’s right, Project Run & Play drove me to ruffles! well, ruffle. but still, it WAS a lot of gathering. I stitched a size 8, which is three sizes larger than I would make with knits, for a boxier silhouette, and I think this is the only garment I made for the whole series that didn’t require at least one muslin!
the fab fabrics are, of course, Cotton + Steel. the butterfly print is from Rashida’s Moonlit collection and the gold dot is this border print from Melody’s Mustang collection. the dress is lined with cotton tencel chambray, with lots of understitching so that I could keep the exterior very clean, and fastens in the back with one pearl snap.
Kahlin’s dress is a modified Desert Rose Dress (which my friend Julie pointed out looks so much like this gorgeous dress that the amazing Rachel of Stitched Together made, I’m sure that dress must have gotten wedged into my subconscious). edits made to the pattern: replaced the gathered skirt with a circle skirt, changed to a v-shaped neckline in the front (though not TOO v-neck , I made that mistake in the muslin and it looked far too grown-up), shaped bottom of the front bodice into an inverted-v with just the tiniest bit a curve in the center, dropped the bottom of back bodice, and finished with a wide hem facing.
the bodice and hem facing are Cotton + Steel, the bodice is lined with mustard double gauze, and the skirt is double gauze from Ellen Luckett Baker’s Framework collection. all of the topstitching was delicately done with metallic gold thread, including a triple stitched line to finish the hem. no joke, that metallic gold thread!!! I found this awesome post about sewing with metallic thread (after I finished, of course!) that is full of great tips, so if you are thinking about using metallic thread, I would definitely read that first.
the girls love these dresses, and they’ll certainly be layered with leggings and cardis to last through the winter.
we were due for some family photos (gotta keep up on the hairstyles, you know!), and since these dresses were made to reflect the girls’ personalities and styles, they were the perfect thing for them to wear. as usual, I adore the super amazing Marissa Bowers * Artful Design + Photography… she always makes us look SO good!
thanks to everyone who has commented and voted throughout this competition. I’d love one last vote… just hop on over to Project Run & Play to vote for your favorite signature look!!
happy stitching!
xo, rachael
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