Last week I wrote about creating an “ugly Christmas sweater” for Barbie, using various patterns. To read that article, please click here.
But I also mentioned the sweater dress you see on Francie in View E of McCall’s 8531. I’d like to continue sharing my adventures in making Francie a sweater dress, in today’s blog post.
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When I started this sock-to-sweater-dress project, I envisioned the rainbow-printed sock as a dress that paid homage to Peter Max. If you don’t remember Peter Max‘s name, you might still be familiar with his artwork, which is brightly colored, often features a horizon with beams of light and stars, and back in the 1970’s, his paint canvas was sometimes populated with people wearing exaggerated bell bottoms.
Click on this link to see some of his artwork from his personal website. (Incidentally, somebody has a bunch of Peter Max linens, which would make FANTASTIC fabric, for sale on eBay right now. Click here to see those creations!)
Peter Max’s art was all the rage back in the 1970’s, so this colorful blue and hot pink sock (left behind by my daughter when she moved away for college) seemed like the perfect fabric to use for Francie, who’s best known as Barbie’s “Mod” friend.
As you can see in the images above, there was a little issue with trying to fit this one-piece pattern on the sock. The sock’s heel took up the bottom half of the front of the dress. Not only would it stick out at an odd angle if I cut the dress out as a one-piece pattern, but the heel was hot pink, unlike the rest of the dress, which turquoise blue and decorated with brightly colored rainbows.
These socks had a directional print, too, which means that half of the rainbows would be upright, but the other half of them would be upside down, had I tried to cut the pattern out of a single sock.
So I divided my View 3 dress pattern into two halves, adding a seam allowance at the top where I would sew the shoulders together. You can see that seam after it has been sewn together, in the first image, in the illustration below.
As you can see in the second step shown above, I changed the keyhole neck opening that came with this dress, but this is where I made a big mistake.
You see, the original pattern only offers a keyhole neck opening through which you’re supposed to dress the Francie doll. The original pattern is all one piece — front and back — remember? I don’t know about you, but when I owned doll clothes that only opened at the neck, I almost never played with them as a kid. They’re just too much of a struggle to get on and off.
So I bravely cut my back into two pieces, even though I hadn’t made room for a seam allowance along that back closure. Creating a lining can help, making it easier to keep seams narrow, but it’s not going to fit the way the designer intended. I also used stretchy fabric for the lining, in the hope that it would still fit Francie after it was done.
The final dress turned out okay, but I’m not sure it does justice to what I had imagined when I started the project. Somehow, I thought it would be peppered with little rainbows, Peter-Max-style, but instead, we see only two and a half rainbows on the front and three rainbows in the back, assuming two half-rainbows make a whole.
Since I lined this dress, that made the keyhole feature much easier to sew than if I’d been trying to clip that feature and sew it down with straight stitches or buttonhole stitches, which is what the instructions recommend. So I feel like my dress’s keyhole was a big success.
And while I goofed when cutting out the back pieces (I even struggled to make them match up at the hem when I added snaps down the back), I’m just glad the darned thing actually fits Francie! Hooray for that!
Questions: Are you old enough to remember Peter Max’s art? If not, did you visit his website? What do you think of his art?
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