A Pattern Mash-up

In my promise to blog more - today I bring a pattern mash up that I did to create the look I and my daughters were going for.

My daughters have been dancing for years. Well - 9 years and 7 years each. They starting competing at 9 & 7.   Last year we talking about the two of them doing a tap duo together. They are both really good tappers and they love it. In our discussions we had decided to compete with it in the 2014-2015 season. Mainly to give me a chance to learn to work with dance fabrics a bit more and because at the time they were already in quite a few competition dances.  Well things changed and we decided to just go for it this year.

Our research and discussions with people led us to Spandex World for our Plaid fabrics. That was the easy part. We decided that the girls would each wear a different colorway to add more to their duo.

The next part proved to be a bit more difficult. I am not a pattern drafter (for the most part). If I HAVE to, I will and have drafted a piece to work as I wanted.  However this time I was working with fabrics that were $15 a yard and there was not a lot of room for error.

I received the fabrics on Friday and thought I'd get started right away. (just in case it didn't work) I still didn't have a plan. The end result..... Success!!! For the most part. Still had some tweaking - but I was ready to go cut into the good stuff.

In the end it all worked out and my girls LOVE their new tops. I still have some finishing due to the fabric not being 4 way stretch - but that's ok.

So here's what we did.

We used the SisBoom Sophie and sized down a few sizes. I cut it shorted to give us a cropped top look and added a band around the bottom. I used the cuff sleeve version but sized the cuffs down one size smaller than the arm I used. I also did not cut the opening into the decorative style. Once sewn together I just cut a small slit straight down the middle (about 2 inches - I should have done about 1 inch) Then for the collar I used the Carla C - Scientific Seamstress Bowling shirt collar. Here instead of sizing down I had to size up. On the red shirt I used the 7/8 and then for the purple shirt I used the 7/8 enlarged 105%.

In the end the girls are happy & so am I! Now to put the rest of the costume together!

Excuse the messy hair and goofy faces. This is what I get when I
"pose" them late at night!