Hi, there! Kim here, and I’m so excited to be guest blogging with Ellie and Mac. Until recently, I was a stay at home wife and mom. After 9 years out of the workforce, I now find myself back in the classroom teaching full-time so I love every chance I get to spend time with my much beloved and very missed sewing machine. December certainly popped up out of nowhere, and I’m panicking that we are already within weeks of celebrating Christmas. Every year, the kids sit rummage through Pinterest to tell me what they want to wear to Christmas Eve service. This year, my daughter picked a vintage style dress with a Peter Pan collar. As usual, she wanted mods…it wouldn’t my daughter if she didn’t want to hack a pattern somehow off we went to look at what I had in my pattern stash.
That’s how the Be Amazing and Sitting Pretty Top mash up came to be. However, she wanted “a fancy something” at the neck so I finagled a little bit of a change on the collar to accommodate the fancy that she was looking for.
The first thing I did was take a look at the bodice on the Be Amazing, and I shortened the Sitting Pretty so that it was the same length. I did do some merging at the side seams so that the waist was the same width as the original Be Amazing bodice. Nothing too fancy. With the top being knit and the bottom being woven, I decided to add a little extra support by adding some clear elastic around the waist.
For the neckline, I just cut the collar to be a little smaller so that there would be a space between the two points on the front to place the bow and sparkly button that she picked out.
My all-time favorite part of the dress has to be the horsehair hemline. It really makes the skirt pop and gives it that vintage feel that we were going for. I ordered mine from Amazon, and it was a pretty wide horsehair braid. I attached it just like the instructions for the Be Amazing, but I added another line of stitch at the top of the hem to keep the horsehair from flipping over since my daughter is all over the place. She still runs around like she’s in shorts and sneaks so sometimes things end up turned upside down. If you’ve never worked with horsehair, do not be afraid. It’s so super easy to use and looks amazing when it’s done.
I went with a straight 10 on the size. It was pretty loose at the waist, but I didn’t mind it so much because my daughter likes to have a fair amount of movement in her clothes so she can still run around so it turned out perfect. My daughter is pretty thin so she still wears an 8 width in most clothes so I knew I was pushing my luck going with a 10. We might add a sash to it for Christmas Eve service, but if not, it’s still perfect as is!
I really do love this mash up, and I love that I could grab two Ellie and Mac patterns and put them together so perfectly to make my daughter the dress that she was looking for! Right now, all patterns are currently on sale and for the month of December, you get 30% off when you spend $25 so you really are going to catch an amazing deal no matter what you do this month! You can also swing by the Ellie and Mac Facebook page and join us to get some inspiration, share your creations, or get some help if you hit a head scratch in the creative process. We’d love to see what you create!
Thanks so much and Happy Sewing!
