The ‘I wish it wasn’t pink’ Pink dress

My mother is crafty.

And generous.

She got my little girl a lovely dress for Christmas from Bread and Jam. The crafty bit was she got her a dress that she thought I might be able to copy. So really it was 2 presents in 1 – a dress for   Lily and a project for me.

I got this bundle of fabric in Remnant Kings in the scrap pile for the princely sum of £5. There’s about 1.5m of pink corduroy, cotton spotty fabric and some kind of soft white lining fabric.

The bugger of it is it is pink.

Those who know me, know how  peed off I am at the pinkification of girls. One of the reasons I sew clothes for Lily is to give her some more choice in colours. It frustrates me no end the lack of choice in girls clothing and quite frankly I find it sinister the changes clothes and toy manufacturers are making to our society.

Don’t even get me started on Lego. Pink Lego? Why – what is so wrong with boys and girls being allowed the same colour palette. I want my girl to grow up thinking anything is an option not just the ‘girly’ choices.

 

There are some fab campaigns out there that I loosely follow. I saw this yesterday which I think is fab –  a lady in Tasmania who does make-unders for Bratz dolls called Tree Change Dolls

There’s also the He for She campaign which was so eloquently launched by Emma Watson at the UN. Then there is the Pink Stinks campaign (though it hasn’t been so active of late).

But these are campaigns to let girls be girls and not push our adult agendas on them. So maybe the problem with pink dresses is my problem not Lily’s? She doesn’t yet have a favourite colour and doesn’t yet aim for the ‘girly’ section of shops so maybe I should get off my high horse and just make her a pink dress?? After all the Pinkification of girls campaign is about giving girls choices not restricting their choices. Sometimes I think I am in danger of over thinking things.

So to the dress. Pattern wise it is quite simple – A line with a yoke at the neck and a side zip. I traced the dress onto greaseproof paper which acts as cheap tracing paper and cut my pieces.

Putting it together took a little head scratching. I put the lining wrong side out (or so i thought) over the dress and added the zip and sewed round the arm holes. I then flipped the lining to the inside.

Next I sewed the yoke pieces at the shoulders to create a full hoop. Next I attached the yoke lining to the yoke outer at the upper end.

Next I sewed the yoke outer to the neck band of the dress. The folder the lini g under and top stitched all round. To make things neat I hand stitched the lining down. Finally I added a contrasting band along the bottom of the dress and a pocket.

Here is the finished product along side the original. Not a bad attempt I think. Its definitely one to grow into though – its age 2 and up but she’s only 18 months now.

Conclusion? I like it – I just wish it wasn’t pink!

Original I copied and the new pink version