the jabara dress
Ever since I laid my hands on Tomoko Nakamichi's Pattern Magic 2, I wanted to make a dress for Little E with ball-shaped accordion (jabara) sleeves. There are lots of other pattern ideas in the book, equally unsuitable for children's clothes, that looked like a great challenge to try out, but the puffy sleeves seemed especially marvellous. And then I saw this stunning jabara version on rastacuero and knew I had to give it a try as well. Ignoring any sense of practicality and spending the middle of a couple of nights tweaking and twitching little piecs of fabric, I was quite conscious of the fact that, - let's face it - this dress will presumably not be worn a lot. It's a size 1, and by this time E will probably have entered the district of crawling-almost-walking and a bubble dress with enormously sleeves might not make the cut when faced with serious competition by (also Mama-made) more practical dungarees and T-shirt pants. But I wanted to try this design and so I did. The instructions given in Pattern Magic are all rather on the minimalistic side, Nakamichi gives you just enough to get your head racing; seamstress tangram! But I had a lot of fun figuring out a pattern and since I was in learning mode I thought it might be nice to try my hands on a bubble dress while I was at it.
I didn't have a bubble dress pattern for this particular size but there was one size 100-130 cm in the originally Japanese 'Joilies tenues pour fillettes coquettes', a beautiful book despite it's unfortunate French title. Looking at the instructions I figured out the basics of a bubble dress (as I understand it in a nutshell; make it wide and add a shorter and thinner lining). These are really easy to sew and if you have a blouse or simple smock pattern you can make it bubbly in no time.
At the moment I'm following with much admiration and awe the super talented creations over at PR&P and since they have a sew-along competition each week I'm tempted to enter my jabara dress. However, part of me feel like this would be cheating as the challenge this week was to choose a decade and design a children's outfit based on the fashion trends during that era. Basically, this dress is an utter mess when seen through the lens of fashion history. The accordion sleeve might place it in the Mary Stuart life guard category, the Peter Pan collar reads 1920ies, the bubble dress came along in the 50ies, and then the colour, very much 2011. If this was not just me playing around with a bit of cheap fabric I could see Tim Gunn peeking over my shoulders being concerned about my 'editing', or more to the point the lack thereof.
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Reader Comments (4)
I think the dress has turned out wonderful! I like the plain fabric you chose — it really lets the construction details stand out.
And why not some pieces of not-so-practical clothing? She'll look darling, that's for sure! :)
This is gorgeous! I am drooling over your workmanship! Well done.
I love the sleeves! If you need any french translation do not hesitate! Drop me a line!
Emma (LittleHandsDreams)
I own Pattern Magic 1 but never thought of incorporating these tricky yet beautiful construction techniques into girls clothing. Now I am rethinking. Well done!