Two Janie Dresses in Nosh Knits

There aren't many patterns that I feel work well for all three of my oldest girls. To me, there are certain patterns that have a distinctly toddler feel to them, others that seem to work best for the preschool - early grade school period, and finally others seem best suited for older girls. The latter category is by far the hardest for me to find!

After I made a Janie dress for Iris, I knew I would make one for Tia, too.  But after I made Tia's, I realized that this dress would also look really great on Indigo. I am always happy to find a pattern that suits Indigo!

Indigo had been eyeing Tia and Iris' dresses, and when I asked if she'd like me to sew one for her, too, she said she'd love one.

I made both of these dresses in Nosh knits and I can't say enough good things about them. They are a joy to work with and have incredible recovery. They hold their shape beautifully. They feel more cool and silky than warm and cozy, but I like that, especially for summer.

My friend, Mie, encouraged me last time I was working with knits to stop basting my seams in place and take them directly to my serger. I'll admit, I was pretty intimidated because the serger seams are harder to rip than basted stitches. Also the serger has a blade, so I'm always afraid of accidentally catching some fabric up into the seam and cutting a hole into it with the serger blade.

But I've found as long as I go a bit slower, pin well (and definitely remember to remove the pins!) that it's been going so well. I can't imagine doing it any other way. These dresses came together so quickly! In fact, it probably took me as long to iron and hem the circle skirt as it did to sew the rest of the dress.

As an aside - Mie did recommend I baste detail work first, like neckbands and pockets so I didn't sew all of my seams on my serger alone.

When I printed the pattern for Indigo's dress, I was unable to print from Adobe, so I opened the pattern in Preview or PDF Reader. Rather than printing the standard circle skirt, for some reason it defaulted to printing the gathered circle skirt.  I couldn't figure out why the skirt top didn't fit the bodice bottom because I didn't know a gathered circle skirt was even a pattern option. It wasn't labeled this way on the pattern piece. My scaling was spot on and this was my fourth time printing this pattern, so I couldn't figure what had gone wrong.

Mie came to my rescue (again!) and discovered I had somehow printed the gathered option. She gave me an illustrated photo showing how to cut the skirt to make it fit the bodice without gathering it and to maintain the correct angle so it would lay correctly.  I knew Indigo wouldn't want the extra fullness of a gathered circle skirt. This worked perfectly in the end, but I wanted to share this story in case anyone else has to print from Preview or PDF Reader.

Indigo has this thing about not being a "girly girl" which is largely based off of stereotypes about girls who are boy-crazy or excessively giggling - like the caricatures you might find on television or in movies. (Why do they so often portray girls as being so flaky!?) Not being a girly-girl to her also includes things like not choosing pink as her favorite color. She has been like this for years. So I was surprised that she chose this color knit herself - over mustard.  And she also couldn't resist twirling in it. Which surprised me, too.

(I'm beginning to wonder if it might just be impossible to not twirl in this circle skirt. All three of my girls spin and twirl in these dresses.)

I am glad Indigo is comfortable being herself and not clinging too tightly to her preconceived categories of who she should be - or in this case, not be.  She can be a smart girl who is down-to-earth, but who also wears pale pink and twirls her heart out!

Tia is a quiet and observant child, especially in a group setting. She will often sit back and take it all in.  She doesn't desire to be the center of attention. But as she's listening, if someone (especially Jude or Indigo) says something funny, Tia laughs so loudly and in such a lively way that you might think she was the biggest extrovert in the world - a life-of-the-party type of girl.

Sometimes she'll even clap her hands when she laughs. It's a joyful thing to witness as a parent.  I am so glad to have these photos of the girls together. They capture Tia's laugh perfectly.

I'm so glad they have each other.