A First with Stripes

I usually stay away from stripes and anything that hurts my brain too much to think about getting extra fabric to match, or which patterns would lend themselves best to stripes, so this was certainly a bit of a learning experience for me.

I thought since this pattern said “Super Jiffy” and that the sleeve didn’t specifically say “DO NOT USE STRIPES” that it would be a good pattern for a beginner delving into the world of stripes.

Well, that didn’t really work out as planned for me. In my mind, the notion of a pattern that is “Super Jiffy” wouldn’t include EIGHT darts or a zipper.

Since my fabric was very light and stretchy , I did away with 4 of the darts and the zipper. Fully disclosure:  I took out those 4 darts because they would have made the stripes disjointed, but they seemed to be in places I didn’t need to have them so it doesn’t seem super obvious. I actually really do like this pattern, and will probably make it again because it is cleverly made. I had never done darts that I had to slash (these are what became the side seams) or done a pattern that was one giant piece to cut out, minus the facings.

I was, additionally, expecting the dress to be sort of a sack/shift dress with not much definition, just due to the cover photo, but it actually has some nice shaping to it. With most of the shaping being in the back, it gives me a waist, but also doesn’t pull across the front tummy area.

The little matching romper was super quick, as I just traced the pattern of one of his existing summer rompers. When I tried it on him for size  (and to make sure his big noggin would fit through the neck hole without me having to add a shoulder snap) he proceeded to promptly spit up all over it, so that was fun.

Anyway, I was happy to have gotten over avoiding sewing with stripes and tried something out of my comfort zone, and was pleased with the result of the matching in the back seam as well as the darts- which I didn’t think about at all but will definitely remember to consider next time so I don’t have to just randomly leave out parts of the pattern. I got lucky this time, at least!