Wow, it's been waaay too long. I've been busy working on our new Talikins site, do check it out
here , so no time to do important things such as sewing - but now that the site's done...here comes the sewing!
So today's how-to is a pinafore. I love this pinafore as it just looks gorgeous with jeans, or if it's still a little longer as a dress. And it's just too cute. And soooo easy. Excuse the strange clothing color combinations below and the peg.
So, first comes the hardest part - deciding which fabrics to use!! Always the most difficult part for me... You can very easily make this pinny reversible, it actually just depends on your hemming skills. So, your fabric choices do depend on that. But whatever you decide you need a lining fabric and an outer fabric. Not proper lining fabric I mean, just any fabric that you think would be fine on the inside or outside if it's to be reversible.
So...cut your pattern out. The pattern at the very bottom of this post was just right for my (almost...sniff sniff) 3 year old, so I guess make it narrower/wider/taller depending. The great thing is that an approximate shape is fine. Let me know if you need any help.
The pattern is done on the fold and you'll need 1 full pattern of each fabric and 1 half pattern (see dotted line) of each fabric. Hope it makes sense. If you print the patterns out to A4 size you should be right.
Make sure you cut 1 each of each fabric. And you should end up with something like this:
If you want to embellish or sew on a pocket, do it now.
Lie the two pieces of each fabric together, right sides together and sew like from the armpit to the hem on both sides like so..
I used my overlocker because I was being lazy ;o) but you don't have to .
Then put one dress inside the other, right sides together so they line up all round and sew together like below. The black line represents where you'll be sewing the lining pinny to the outer pinny (except that the top line isn't quite in the right position. Hope this make sense anyway). Remember to have right sides together.
Here's another photo to show this:
Then turn the whole thing right side round and iron it.
Now we're going to sew a line from one side to the other across the back only and about 2.5cm down from the top (more or less depending on your elastic). You should end up with this kind of thing:
Put your elastic on a safety pin, go between the two layers and thread the elastic from one side to the other across the back, through the channel you've just created. Sew a straight line to set it in place at each end, making sure to gather the fabric under the elastic so it's nice and scrunched, loose enough for comfort, tight enough that it will stay there. Like this:
You should end up with something like this on the back:
Now you need your trusty iron again. Fold the top of the pinafore down 1-2 cm (as you like it), iron and sew like so:
Then insert your ribbon or bias tape folded in half & sewn. I didn't think the bias tape we have here would work so well in this case (color clash!!) so I just threaded through some ribbon:
