Why, yes. One of my children IS Amish.

Why do you ask?

Poor TLo.  A dedicated reader will already be aware that TLo has very little in the way of Clothing That Fits, due to her -ahem- Sturdy Build.  So I added several jumper patterns to her SWAP list, hoping to have at least two or three for school.

I was really excited to make this BurdaStyle pattern (1-2009 #136A), which I've been eyeing since it came out.  Little did I know the shock and horror that would ensue. 

Look at those happy little urchins, just frolicking deceptively in the snow.  They are so totally not telling the truth about this jumper!  Evil, evil urchins.

The first shock came when I finally traced out the pattern pieces and suddenly discovered (I'm a little slow) that the yoke is ONE PIECE.  Seriously, this is a freaky piece of design work. 

It makes the jumper completely Not Adjustable, because the fit of the jumper is necessarily limited by the size of the head-hole.  Since I was up-sizing this a little for TLo, much mathematical confusion ensued leading to a highly typical round of sheer guesswork.  Would TLo be able to get her head through it?  Who knew?

The second shock came when I began assembling said freaky-head-hole-yoke-piece. Sadly, I decided to make the jumper in a fabric that one could only call "inappropriate".  I'm pretty sure it's a Haggar remnant. I got it online for a very good price and if I was making mens' trousers I'd probably be in clover. Sadly, I was making a little girl's jumper.  The results were... unpleasant.

Besides my poor fabric choice (much too stiff and egregiously prone to wrinkling), this pattern was a P.I.T.A. to put together.  I mean, I'm a quilter.  I’m not completely unfamiliar with a curved seam... but this one kicked my butt.  The trauma of it all has rendered details hazy, but I seem to recall that you sew the upper curve of the yoke and facing together whilst sandwiching the two straps, then stitch the (heavily pleated) skirt to one piece and topstitch the other down.  Much as you would any yoke-and-skirt combo, but with y'know, horrifying curves and hugely bulky pleats.  Oh joy.

Wrinkling.  Much, much wrinkling.

It didn’t really get any better from there.

I still make TLo wear this to school.  I’m sure I’ll be sorry in ten years when I have to pay her therapy bills.

Mod-Not

I heart me some Modwear.  Seriously.  I mean, I stopped watching Project Runway halfway through two seasons ago and I’m actually almost sorry because I missed out on this guy:

And of course the anti-social rebel in me felt compelled to create a mod dress for TLo’s school uniform.  Because that’s exactly what school uniforms need more of: Mod.

In that vein, I attempted to make this dress for TLo.  It (technically) conforms to the dress code: sleeves, collar, solid color.  Right?  RIGHT?

Unfortunately, in my brilliance I decided to not (as recommended) use felted wool but instead use a slubby sort of linen-lookish cotton that I got... from somewhere.  (Probably from Fabric Mart in that bundle of stuff that included the Anna Sui Harses-Harses-Harses border print and the surprise pink dotted-swiss voile.  Just guessing.)

Anyway, I made the dress very specifically not from felted wool (and given that today –two days before Thanksgiving-- it's 81 degrees outside, that was probably not an unreasonable decision).  Which is fine.  Until I realized that one of the reasons felted wool was probably a good choice for this dress is that the ruffles on the collar are unfinished.  Which obviously works fabulously in felted wool, but not so fabulously in cheap linen-lookish cotton.

Oh, the humanity.

This tragedy might have been avoided by simply overlocking or zig-zagging the edges of said ruffles... except I didn't have any orange thread. And wasn’t about to go and buy some.  I could have used the white thread I used on the rest of the dress, but it would have really stood out and possibly made it no longer so “solid colored”.  So I didn't attach the ruffles.  Which immediately begged the question, then why make the dumb thing in the first place? 

I know.  It's a good question.  A mod dress with no mod ruffles... is just a plain boring dress.

I did make an orange fabric rose pin to stick on the front, thinking it would at least add some visual interest.  But it's too heavy and droops in a very unbecoming manner.

Hmmph.

Here's TLo, not particularly looking fabulous in said ruffleless dress.

Plus, she wouldn’t wear the white go-go boots.

I've decided Mod is not good for us.

But here’s a Mod-ish blast from the past… if your past includes early 90’s Canadian hip-hop.  Mine does.

 

In our next episode: BurdaStyle... apparently they think we have monkey hands for feet.  It's the only explanation for their belief that assembling this dress is possible.