Crafting Creatively - Things I've Made: Samantha/Nellie's Pink Dress and Pinafore

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The perfect dress for keeping clean and neat. Maybe.

Huzzah! My photocorner has been set back up, and in such a way that I can potentially get a lot of natural sunlight to drape and not have to use the flash every time I want to take pictures of things. I took a backlog of review shots in giddiness, including a craft project I did this winter. And it has been some time since I showed off what I can do. (And why people can and often do listen to me when I say things about crafting.) Let's fix that. I'm an awesome craft guru.

This time on Crafting Creatively, let's look into the fine details and designing of what I've titled Samantha/Nellie's Pink Dress and Pinafore. I say it with the slash like that because I made two sets like I do for gifts. The gift set went to Brazil¹ for Bea (thedollrookie)'s Samantha, and the set here is for Nellie. AGC did a gift swap, and when I was selected with Bea and saw her Samantha didn't have much in the way of wardrobe, I jumped at the chance to make her a Neth's Original Outfit. Me and Samantha don't get along re: Pretty Pink Princess, but designing Edwardian clothing is awesome. I love making historical outfits more than modern stuff, because I feel like I can be a lot more creative with it even in restrictions. Modern stuff is okay, don't get me wrong, but historical clothing design has become one of my passions over the many years I've existed.

ETA, 2/29/16: Retroactive description!

"Samantha"’s Pink Dress and Pinafore

Samantha can’t wait to see Gardner and Cornelia after their honeymoon! She has a brand new white dotted pinafore to wear over her best pink floral print dress. There’s even a big pink grosgrain hairbow to wear in her brown curls!
Hop under the cut for background and details.

Getting the idea for an outfit to make was probably the easiest part of this design, since I have all of Samantha's short stories and had been planning to make one of the outfits shown. Outfits were made for Samantha's Winter Party and Samantha's Special Talent, as was the style of the time in 1999 and 2003,² but not any others. So I went with the outfit depicted at the start of Samantha's Blue Bicycle. Uncle Gard and Aunt Cornelia are back from their honeymoon, and Samantha is shown wearing a new white pinafore over a pink dress much like her Play Dress and Pinafore.

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Samantha on a bike!  Very new-fangled.

She then proceeds to overestimate her bike ability in front of her uncle and aunt, get her hems caught in the bike chain in that era before chain guard, tumble off her bike, and almost fall into the lake. Thus ripping her dress and messing up her brand new pinafore. Oh, Samantha, why is book you better and less perfectly portrayed? Anyways. I liked that outfit, and decided someday to make a version of it. And what a great opportunity to do so.

I used a mix of two separate patterns to get the basic layout of the set; one for the pinafore, and one for the dress basic layout.³ I can't ever just do a pattern most of the time without tweaking it some. I got some dotted swiss, pink grosgrain ribbon, eyelet lace trim, and a pink floral print that, while "bright," was of a style that didn't look too off from the Edwardian aesthetic.I tweaked and measured and edited and crammed pieces together, and came up with--well, that awesome above. Bea and her mother were hella impressed.

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Huge ass hairbows.

Hairbow: To top off the whole set, I cut some very wide pink ribbon with V-ends and tied it in Nellie's hair. It's just not quite as Edwardian without stupidly huge hair bows that eat your head.

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Pinafore, for all your neatness needs.

Pinafore: The pinafore took up the bulk of the dotted swisswork. It's a high yoked basic drape, designed to cover the dress underneath as much as possible.

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Bodice.

Rather than do the huge ruffle shown in the illustration--which would have made it too much like the play dress set--I left most of the yoke visible.

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Shoulder ruff is staring at you.

The armholes are trimmed all the way around with very wide eyelet lace. The design makes the holes look like a face, but it was the best eyelet I could get that didn't look way off and was huge as hell. So deal with it.

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Underarm.

Yes, all the way around. I decided to tuck it in for display for the review. It also allows two looks. I like to get more than one look out of my sets if possible.

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Thanks, it has pockets.

The original pattern did not have pockets, but it is very important to have pockets to put things in like gingerbread cookies and knives you swiped off of snotty little boys and will later cram with taffy. So I cut and pressed pockets and marked where to put them on the front of the set.

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Edge.

The edge also has the same eyelet trim, all the way around. It was easier than cutting and drafting a ruffle, which I had thought about but ultimately skipped.

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Take it from the back, I like it like that.

The back has a nice high closure, and the skirt-bodice is open all the way up like you do.

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Button, button, who's got the button?

At the top are two white buttons, hand sewn on.

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No one, it's velcro.

But rather than try and figure out buttonholes on my machine--fuck that shit--I sewed on while velcro. Sew smarter, not harder.

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Inner lining.

Inside, the entire yoke is fully lined. I was not pressing tiny necklines. This is easier.

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Hand sewing will end me.

I did make sure to properly tuck and handwhip the edges shut. I hate large project handsewing almost as much as Felicity does, but clean up handsewing is easy enough, if tedious.

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Dressing up for the occasion.

Dress: The dress is where all the pink print went, every bit of it. The dress is a high yoked long sleeved day dress. The fabric is a pink daisy cotton print that, again, while pretty bold is of a small enough overall size that it doesn't look like Nellie is wearing a quilt.⁴ The original pattern did not have several elements added here. I measured and cut them out myself, because again I am talented and contain multitudes of craft skill. For the start of this detail the waist will be drop blouson, but that is not its only look. You'll see.

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Trim your edges.

Over the seam of the yoke is thin pink grosgrain sewn on in zigzag stitch.The original called for ruffle trim around the yoke and shoulders but that was not the purpose of this dress, so ribbon trim.

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Collar.

The original also did not call for a collar. I measured and cut a collar of the dotted swiss, and sewed it in and over. Bonus: You can see how it works well with the pink daisy print. When I do semi-major projects, I get all the fabric at the same time so that I know they compliment each other from jump.

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Cuffs.

The cuffs are also the same dotted swiss, and also added on. There's no shot, but the wrists close with snaps. Snaps suck to sew on, but velcro sucks more to sew in a sleeve cuff, so I did snaps.

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Sleeve poof.

The sleeves are appropriately poofy for the era's look.

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Skirt ruffle.

The original also did not call for a bottom ruffle. So I measured out and cut one and added it to the bottom. Math, gotta use it sometimes to get things to look like I want them to.⁵

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Waistline, Style A: Blouson.

The waistline, in first view, is gathered at the waist with a low puffy blouson style. But it doesn't have to stay that way!

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The secret's in the ribbon.

I just tied the ribbon around Nellie's waist/hips and then pulled the dress up over it. Ta-da!

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Bow at the back.

Allowing for a little bow at the back.

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Upper ribbon.

While I'm back here, there's ribbon trim at the back too. The back closes with pink velcro. I found it and I was gonna use it.

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Waistline Style B: Free.

With the ribbon, removed, the bottom of the dress can hang completely free. It's a little rumpled, because Nellie's been wearing the dress tied up for a while. It could easily be pressed out and look fine, though.

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Waistline Style C: Natural Waist.

And also tied back with a ribbon around the waist for a more natural waist position. This could have also been done with the large hair ribbon, but I decided to use the smaller.

There are people in this fandom that will insist that every dress in the Edwardian era should have a drop waist and a blouson bodice. They are dumb, and insisting on that for the era is like insisting that every 1980s outfit had to have legwarmers. Yeah, nope.

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Back tie.

Just a quick shot of the back bow. It's twisted, which annoys me, but I'm not retaking the picture.

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Shoes.

And Nellie is, of course, wearing her mary janes and tights, for the ultimate in little girl looks.

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All the Nellie ruffles.

I am ridiculously proud of this dress design--I love to try making things from the books that weren't and aren't likely to be made by AG themselves. I and was utterly joyed that Bea likes it so much, and think it looks excellent on my Nellie-girl. It's probably one of my favorite clothes designs I've done in a while. And Nellie rocks the hell out of it. 

Just no getting her skirts caught in her bike chain, once I get that bike of Samantha's. (And maybe paint it blue. We'll see.)

--Neth

¹ Yes, all the way there. American Girl is global on AGC.
² Most of the girls got two Short Story outfits. The ones that didn't get two were Kit, Kaya, and Felicity. Each only got one, since Felicity was kicked out of the group for round two in 2003, Kit got two stories but only one was included in the story outfits, and Kaya because AG doesn't make historical outfits for her.
³ Now if I told you which two I used, then you would be able to maybe copy me, and I don't do that. So nothing saying. They're both out of production, anyways, so there.
⁴ Please don't make your girls look like they're wearing a quilt.
⁵ But not calculus. Never calculus. That is strictly my term for hardened tooth plaque.