Knit for a Princess!

Guest post by Joey Hendricks
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My daughter and I LIVE in knits. They're easy to wear and care for and they can hold up to our crazy daily life. As you can imagine, I was beyond excited when Jocole released the Endless Dress that can be made in either wovens or knits. Seriously, could that dress BE any more awesome?

Yes, it can! It can be made in fairy printed pink baby rib knit with an foe neck binding and pretty princess sleeves!! It was so simple to make and it looks so great.

Cutting
The first thing I did to adapt the Endless Dress pattern was when I was cutting my pattern pieces, I cut 2  of the high neck front bodice pieces. Since I was making my dress in knit, I didn't need the button closures in the back (cut one on the fold along the grey dashed center back line instead) and I didn't want to add a collar.

Then I traced the sleeves from the Everyday Princess Top. I like added fullness for the skirt so I (typically) ignored Jodi's good advice listed in the pattern and I cut my skirt pieces the full yard width wide. (That's pretty darn WIDE in a knit fabric. Somewhere near 5 feet...let's just say I scaled that back and LISTENED to Jodi lol).

I'm pretty devoted to Jocole patterns and have a FEW (oooooor all of them...don't judge lol) that include a neck binding, So I busted out my trusty old copy of the Ruffle Tee and I scoped out the measurements for the neck binding :) and I cut my piece of foe just about an inch longer.

Laid it all out and cut my fabric..

Construction

As with any Jocole knit top, I started my construction at the shoulder seams and did the neck binding right away. I used fold over elastic at about 75% of the circumference of my neck. Fold over elastic isn't nearly as stretchy as ribbing so bear that in mind and cut yours a little bit longer. I just folded it over the raw edge and zigzagged it on with matching thread. I stretched it a bit as I was sewing just like I would've with ribbing.

The next step was the sleeves. My daughter requested "puffy princess sleeves, mama." I'd never gathered with knits before, not really. I went with the clear elastic gathering method and it worked like a charm. I will never gather any kind of knit fabric any other way! It's so simple, too. All you do is measure your gathering elastic against whatever you're joining it to and add an inch or so to hold it while you sew! You have to try this! Make sure you stretch the clear elastic quite a bit when you're sewing it on. The more you stretch, the more gathers you create.

The tutorial, written by a professional and not meeeeeeee can be found on the blog at http://jocole.blogspot.com/2013/01/clear-elastic-gathers-and-ruffles-easy.html

 For the princess sleeves, you need to gather both the top and the bottom to create that awesome puffy look. Then you just sew the sleeve band on. There's no stretching or anything...just pin it on and sew. The armhole works exactly the same way!

One thing I did want to say about gathering with clear elastic is to watch your stitch width. If your stitch is too wide, like a standard sized zigzag, your elastic won't ruffle. It's too well held down lol. Ask me how I know? I ended up just using my normal stretch stitch on the elastic and I'm super happy with the way the sleeves turned out!

Tada!!!

 The rest of the construction was pretty normal. I used the clear elastic to gather the skirt. The elastic helps a lot with keeping everything together while you're attaching things.This is how it turned out :D My daughter loves it so that's a WIN!