Oliver + S: Playtime Dress (or Tunic)

If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve seen my latest passion evolve. Sewing.

I bought a sewing machine while my sister was visiting during my maternity leave. Just a little over a year later, I’m obsessed. Sewing is a lot like baking, so it’s no surprise that I love it. I even sometimes refer to the patterns and recipes.

So instead of spending hours pouring over recipes and thinking about ingredients, I’m now reading patterns and gawking at fabric (and buying way too much!)

When I started this blog back in 2007(!), it was primarily to catalog the recipes that Hubby and I were making in our tiny Boston kitchen. While we don’t live in Boston anymore and I’m not baking as much, I decided to take a stab at using this blog for a similar purpose, to catalog my sewing adventures.

I’ll have to go back and post other patterns that I’ve made, but this Oliver + S pattern is a recent project that I completed for M’s school pictures (which are Wednesday). I had this Art Gallery fabric in my stash for a while, waiting for the perfect project. M has recently become obsessed with flowers and as a result has asked to wear this dress every day since I finished it.

This isn’t my first Oliver+S pattern, and like the others I’ve made before, I found some of the steps difficult to understand. I have become accustomed to the tutorial style patterns that include photos for each step of the way. I was able to work through it by reading the difficult steps a couple times before proceeding, but if I had started with this pattern, I think I’d be discouraged. It is rated as an advanced beginner, so I would say that’s accurate.

The only modification I made to the dress was to add some length to the skirt since M is in the 93 percentile in height for her age. And she’s all legs. She was right between two sizes and I went with the smaller size since I wanted her to wear it for pics this week. As a result, it’s a little snug when pulling her arms in to the sleeves, but nothing unmanageable.

I found the details of the pattern worth the extra effort. Since my fabric was so dark, I did go over the topstitching twice with my pink thread so you can see it. Oh, and I also used snaps instead of buttons because I hate buttons. And I have a ton of snaps.

I hope this is the first of many posts about my sewing adventures. And I hope those of you who are still reading are doing well! I’m sure I’ll get around to great photos of M modeling everything, but for now, the phone pics will have to do 🙂

You can purchase the Oliver+S Playtime Dress pattern here. It also includes a tunic option as well as a leggings pattern (that I’ve used multiple times and love!)

The fabric is called Floral Asphalt from Art Gallery Fabrics, which can be purchased here. As you will see, I use Art Gallery fabric a LOT!