KCW: a woollen coat dress

Thanks to two birthdays, a guitar concert, a sick child and a busy last week of school, Kids Clothes Week hasn't been working out very well for me this time. This is going to be my one-and-only contribution to the pool: a coat-dress (pattern O) from Linen, Wool, Cotton Kids. Although the book specifies linen for the dress, the design really lends itself to something warm and cosy, so I used a pure wool fabric from Kim Anh, with some black linen for the facings. It's a sweet and simple design, with tucks at the front and back and a nice long row of buttons at the front (where my daughter says buttons should ALWAYS be). Seven buttonholes, seven buttons... I totally failed at spacing them evenly and had to re-do a few. Unpicking buttonholes is so unpleasant, don't you think? Good thing I bought myself a brand new unpicker along with the fabric. And although the dress looked a bit scrunched up between the buttons in these photos, I promise it hangs beautifully off-camera!

I made a few alterations, one of them inadvertent: I was forced to cut the back bodice in two pieces due to not having bought enough fabric (it's fortunate that R has long hair so nobody will ever notice the mismatched pieces). And since R's waist measurement has remained unchanged for years (the only things that grow on this child are arms, legs and hair) I added cuffs to the sleeves so they can be lengthened as she grows. Unfortunately I managed to make the dress rather short - I was aiming for just above the knee but I have a knack of stuffing these things up - so it might be more of a tunic by next year. It does have a decent hem on it, though, so I guess I should unpick it and hem it with facing or something... but I'm probably too lazy to bother at this point.

R is unwell today and wasn't exactly enthused about modelling, so I had to rope in my lovely feline assistant. Please note that no cats were harmed in the taking of these photos; Morry just loves getting into suitcases!