Showing posts with label teen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teen. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Leona from Fibre Mood

For our eldest, I sewed a Leona sweater from the newest Fibre Mood. Our teen is not 100% behind the exaggerated shoulder trend which is why I slightly hacked the pattern by making the sleeve a little bit wide. Do check out the links from other people that sewed the original Leona. The sweater was made in stretch velvet from Nooteboom, an instant cozy feeling. 








 

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Nivalis for a teen



I have been busy the last months and my blog shows this. I was busy with my work and drafted the Permeo, but now, as fo many of you my life is forcefully calming down. Over last months I did sew, though, and I want to start showing you my creations again.





My refound motivation to blog might also be induced by our eldest, who somehow did not like the pictures of herself in the previous pajama blog post. I will pick up my blogging in chronological order, starting with the projects that I sewed in October.






To soothe our eldest’s worries, I am starting with her. She is growing very fast these days and outgrew all her dresses from last winter. She still loves to wear dresses, and I sewed three adult Nivalis dresses for her. Three times the same pattern, but very different dresses.





The bunny version is a panel from Stenzo, I will show the other half later because that also got turned into a dress. The bordeaux one is velvet from Nooteboom. It is super soft and stays pretty wash after wash. The animal print version is paper velvet, also from Nooteboom.

Saturday, August 17, 2019

Dressing the teen: what I learned up to now



Sewing for our eldest has become a little challenging, a very rewarding challenge because it gives me new insights about fitting garments. A few weeks ago, I showed you the shortened Vallis women dresses that I sewed her. Today, I am giving you the teen body take on the Optimum and Litore woman.



After getting such a huge succes with the women Vallis by simply shortening the bottom of the bodice, I tried to do the same with the woman Litore. This was not the same instant success. The finished bodice was gaping a bit at the chest. The fix I did to make it perfect was easy though, I simply shortened the straps at the shoulder about 2 centimeter, one centimeter on each side. This way I did get a perfect fit. I used the A line skirt from the pattern but had to remove the entire hip curve. If you make a woman Litore for your teenage daughter take a good look at the high hip measurement.




The blue dress with flowers is the first Optimum that I made. Because she is between child and women patterns, I dared to see how the dress would fit her. The Risu child version fits her very nicely. The Optimum without adjustments was not a success. Her developed chest was showing too much from the side. I tried to fix it with adding a dart inspired by this hack from the Sofilantjes page. I had done that in the past with a Solis with a similar problem and then it was the perfect solution. At first it seemed to work (it looks great in the pictures) again, but after wearing it for a few hours the Art Gallery fabric that I used seemed to behave differently. It widened a bit, again giving some gaping.




The perfect way to make the Optimum teenage proof is doing the one layer Optimum light hack, the bunny dress with red is my first version. This hack can now also be found on the Sofilantjes page. The band under the arm pulls everything nice and tight but still very comfortable. No gaping what so ever. because of the success with the hacked Optimum I decided to redo the light blue dress. I added a band only around the "armhole". It worked perfectly, no picture though. She had to pull on the dress 5 times before I decided to fix it all with a band and we had already made perfect pictures, so she was not up for that again. Maybe later on Instagram.



What I have learned so far is that bands seem to work very well with developing chests. A small summary regarding Sofilantjes dresses. Risu, and probably all child dresses with sleeves fit fine. The woman Vallis only shortened at the bodice is a winner. The Litore women needs some strap shortening as well, but it is best to test this on your model. Taking in the straps is easy, just cut off the first seam and resew. The Optimum child dress fits best on our teen if I use the Optimum light hack.



Sunday, June 2, 2019

Blending and hacking the ultimate easy teen summer dress



Although I can sew a lot and do not mind sewing easy pieces, I also sometimes enjoy buying pieces in a clothing store. Two weeks ago, I went with our eldest and noticed that width wise she fits in the smallest adult pieces (size 34 was even too small!!), but that due to her length the shoulder straps of the sleeveless dresses that we wanted to buy, were way too long. The sleeveless child dresses had an absurdly large armhole and very loose fit, several centimeters of her tank top were showing under her arm.



She has reached the phase in between child and adult which I had noticed with my sewing before. Last year, I made her a Solis and ended up having to add darts because the armhole were gaping.  She is too developed for a child patterns and too short for adult patterns.   Especially, when wearing sleeveless this issues shows, so I decided to try a child/adult blended dress.



Adult patterns are tighter than kids' patterns, so even though she did not fully reach the Sofilantjes' adult size table yet, I was curious to see how the smallest adult Sofilantjes would fit on her. I wanted to make her a Vallis and the chest width of the pattern piece of the size twelve was very similar to the smallest adult size, so I took the plugde and blended.



I took the adult piece as my base. I kept the shoulders and armcycle of the adult piece exactly the same because the height of the arm cycles seemed similar. I did have to redraw the waist bigger though. The size twelve kids is wider, as can be seen on the size table as well. I used the size twelve waist to determine the needed with of the adult pattern piece. I also used the length of the size twelve bodice to determine the length of the bodice. Because I did not change the arm cycles, I did not have to recalculate the arm bands. I did draw a high back neckline, just because it is slightly more versatile, so I did have to recalculate the neckband. I also raised the front neckline with an inch.



I started out with a test dress, because I had no clue how it would fit, the bodice of the child pattern is significantly different from the adult pattern. I used a scrap and some matching uni fabric. I used the half circle skirt from the Regina  It was a perfect fit, so I immediately sewed a second. One from my recently acquired inspirational fabric pile from Joyfits. So, if your daughter has started to develop and has a chest of 76 cm or more, and you own both the child and adult Vallis, I suggest you also blend. It was easy. Now she has a dress that fits perfectly and does not show her tank top.