Reversible Girls Jumper

Hooray!!  Stitch Savvy blog tour, day…not sure what day, but everything has been so pretty and so fun that I could totally do this forever, so let’s not spoil it by counting, OK?  Today, I am so excited to have Rachel from Stitched in Color as part of the tour with her Reversible Girls Dress:

This project was designed years ago, actually, back when I was still manufacturing children’s clothing–it was one of my favorite designs ever, because it includes all the attributes that make me love a garment for my girls, like reversibility, adjustability and subtle retro styling.

The dress is really TWO dresses sewn together at the tie ends around the upper edge, and then hemmed together (with or without the rick rack that Rachel used–is that darling??).  That way, if you’re in our family, anyway, if when you spill yogurt down the front of your freshly-laundered dress, Mom can simply flip it over and you’ve got a whole new (mostly) clean dress to wear!  On top of that, the ties are fully functional rather than being decorative, which means that as she grows, the dress can be adjusted: it’s a mid-calf dress when she’s little, then a mid-thigh tunic as she gets taller, then a hip-length top before she’s too big to wear it!  The sizes are listed as XS-L, but our girls would wear the size S from age 2 up to age 5 with no trouble at all.  Love!

Plus, because this style takes hardly any fabric, it’s a great chance for you to show off those bits of fabric that you don’t want to break up into a quilt, and enjoy them for so much longer.  I hated it when my girls would outgrow something that I loved–what on earth was I supposed to do with an outgrown garment in fabric that I really, truly, deeply loved??  With this style and its simple retro A-line shape, you don’t have to make that decision.  You can put it over a tee shirt or under a cardigan, wear it with shorts or with pants, or all by itself–all year long (much like the Pinafore; there is a method to my madness, y’all).  Rachel did find a bit of errata in her construction of this dress, for which I am thankful–keep your eyes out for a Stitch Savvy (hopefully very short) errata page with updates!

Take some time to tour Rachel’s blog while you’re there reading more details about her Reversible Girls Dress.  I’m so flattered and tickled, seriously, to read what she had to say about the Paving Stones Quilt!  It was such a fun quilt to design, and to think about all the variations that could come out of the pattern–knowing that someone who is such a skilled and talented quilter, who loves to work with color and shape and improv the way Rachel does, was attracted to and inspired by my design is such a day-brightener!  Rachel uses print and color in such amazing ways, and always pushes herself to experiment with new techniques and new looks in her quilting–plus her voice on her blog is so friendly and honest and transparent in her journey as someone who sews that it’s a true joy to read each day’s post.  Check out especially her gallery of finished quilts and her (very impressive) work over at do.Good Stitches, a charity quilting bee run through Flickr.

Next week, the last couple of stops on the Stitch Savvy blog tour, and a chance to win one of TWO samples from the book!