Tamara's Mini Wardrobe,Summer,2009

Well, I worked for three weeks on these pieces and was a bundle of nerves wondering if Tamara would like them and if they would fit. To my amazement,I sent the parcel out (to Ottawa from New Brunswick) by regular post on Monday and she received them on Thursday.Not only that but each piece fit!!.She said it was like Christmas and was very excited and pleased with everything.

The first piece I made was the jacket from this pattern (Vogue 8232)



Originally, it was suppose to go with this royal blue dress from my last post.
But later, I decided to add sleeves to the dress. Well,DD can still wear the jacket and dress together if she wants.



I used cotton twill and made two changes to the pattern.
First I added one inch to the front so that I could add these pretty big blue button and buttonholes.



The second change was on the sleeves. This twill was not stiff but an adequate bottom weight fabric. Thus, the raglan sleeves tended to stick out. To tame this, I formed a pleat at the hem and added a button and this simple step solved the problem.




Here is the dress and the jacket together. What do you think?




The next piece I made was a top using this pattern.( By the way, Debbie Cook has the directions for making an FBA on this pattern here)Is it OK for me to post a link like this?




I had never made anything with a twist on it but I found it quite easy,especially since I used a rayon/lycra which was quite lightweight.I want to make DD a long sleeved dress with this pattern because she really likes the top.




Actually.I'm not crazy about rayon/lycra.It is a little too see-through and clingy for my taste.In Tamara's parcel,I included a white RTW cami to wear under her twist top.



Next up was this skirt made from the same New Look pattern as this one I made for myself. DD chose this fabric so I was quite confident she'd be pleased with it. It's a light, stretchy, cotton poplin.



Instead of gathers on both front and back, I used pleats.



Here are the twist top and poplin skirt together.Tamara agrees that this style is slimming.



The last two pieces were made from a stretchy cotton denim I had in my stash, for DD to wear on casual Fridays.I decided to make the vest as an afterthought because I had a little of the fabric left over from the skirt.

I bought this pattern back in 1995 or so and had never made it.



The vest ended up being shorter than it showed on the pattern jacket so it's a little too short. Tamara agrees with me on that . However if she wears it with a shirt like this RTW T-shirt I picked up for her,tucked in , I think it's wearable..





The skirt is from this pattern (OOP) and is like this skirt. DD loved this one she said.

Well,this has been a long post. I hope you were able to stick it out to the end.I made up a folder of all the pieces if you want to have a look here

I hope you found time to sew this weekend.This week I'm making the jacket in this pattern as a store display.