Dora dress

A Friday evening out on the town. Hubby, two munchkins, and me. Where do we spend our leisure time? Hobby Lobby, of course!

Miss M spied some Dora the Explorer fabric and insisted, "Mama, we need this!"  I politely ignored her. I'm quite adept at it. She tends to talk nonstop most of the day, so I'm a pro at tuning it out. Hubby, on the other hand, is wrapped around her little finger and quite easily caved in and bought her a yard of Dora fabric.  I asked her what she wanted out of it and she promptly said she wanted a dress.

I shuttered inwardly.  Most of the garments made of character prints are rather garish and umm...generally repulsive.  Still, I vowed to do my best.

 I used the Jänönheinä tunic from Ottobre 4/2010 as my base pattern since it was already traced off. I added a 9-inch ruffle about 1 1/2 times the width of the bottom edge of the tunic and lengthened the button band to make the tunic into a long dress. I needed something to balance the horrible Dora-pink, so I made the sleeves, button band, and neck binding of black broadcloth left over from a recent project.  (I somehow managed to forget seam allowances on the button band. I made the best of it, but it did turn out narrower than usual).  Using snaps instead of buttons and buttonholes, I think I broke some kind of personal completion record!

I knew Miss M would want to wear her new Dora dress day and night for the next few days, but since the highs have been in the single digits the past week or so, I thought she might need something with long sleeves to keep her warm.  I had a quarter yard of 60-inch wide high quality polar fleece that I picked up as a remnant for 50 cents.  I squeezed out a little cardigan using the "Lemon juice bolero" pattern from Ottobre 3/2010, #9 (but with long, non-poofy sleeves nabbed from another pattern).  I bound the edges with some cheap black ribbon affixed a hook-and-eye and a little black bow, et voila!  Whatever fleece it was is marvelous! So think and sturdy!  Definitely not like the cheaper fleece Jo-Ann sells.

Hubby also bought Little Guy a yard of Cars fabric.  How can you resist a cute little one-year-old's "das! das!" when he sees something that delights him?