May I Have a Little Spring with that Sunshine?

I decided to import a little spring into my world since the real spring refuses to arrive. The photos from this project keep popping into my head during this long succession of dreary cold days. I think this is one of my favorite projects despite having made it quite some time ago. There is just something about sweet little girl clothes that capture the imagination. The pattern isn't available any longer, but there are very similar ones out there.

I was looking at the children’s patterns hoping there was something new for my little boy when I saw this pattern for girls. I fell in love with it and decided to make it for my 6-year-old niece. Simplicity 5946 is a woman’s and girl’s multisize coat and hat pattern. The pattern envelope recommends it be made of fleece, with a border print, but it would also accommodate a light coat weight woven. It is a swing style coat with an open pleat in the back and easily lends itself to surface embellishment.

I chose a periwinkle single sided fleece with contrasting fleece for the surface embellishment. There were not any border prints that I liked so I decided to make flowers of my own and apply them to the coat. I cut the flowers and leaves out of the contrasting fleece. I sewed the leaves on with a single line of stitching through the middle to mimic the vein in a real leaf. The flowers were cut from 3 different colors of fleece. I did not sew them to the coat but attached them with a yellow button for the flower center using 6 strands of embroidery thread pulled through the holes once, with the thread ends facing the outside of the coat, then triple tied for to look like stamens in a real flower. There are three flowers on the bottom of each front side and a flower on right front collar. Leaving the edges loose on the flowers and leaves creates a three dimensional appearance to the design. This isn’t a problem with fleece since it doesn’t ravel. This technique was suggested in the

pattern directions.

The hat was made from the same periwinkle fleece but it doesn’t stretch. I created a contrasting band using the double sided pink fleece that I had for the flowers. This has a fair amount of stretch like most fleece so it allows the hat to hug the head. The pattern calls for a flower on the band but I put it on the top where all the seams meet.

Using the fabric measurements on the back of the pattern leaves a lot of extra fabric. There is also a lot left of the contrasting fabric because of how little is needed for the flowers. I made a pink scarf to go with the jacket and a small purse with the excess fabric. The purse is a small pocket style with a pink braid strap that I knotted and raveled at the end. I sewed across the braid to limit the raveling. The same flowers from the coat were put on the front of the purse.

Beware of the armscye size! The circumference of the armhole is extremely small. I unfortunately didn’t discover this until I had cut out the pattern was ready to insert the sleeves. My niece lives far away from me so I had to make adjustments using measurements given over the phone. In the end I inserted a “gusset” or diamond shaped piece of fabric in the underarm seam. It isn’t the neatest looking part of the finished garment, but it does allow enough space in the armscye for comfortable wear. Make sure you use flat pattern measurements to select the size for this pattern. There is a very generous amount of design ease and could easily be too big using the envelope size measurement. I like the roll up sleeve design. Children’s coats often become too short in the arms. With this full style it will allow the child to wear the jacket longer by just making the cuff narrower. It was a great feature since I was sewing this for someone that couldn’t try it on. I didn’t have to worry about sleeve length at all. The instructions that I read in this pattern were good but to be honest I didn’t follow them. This is a simple pattern so I didn’t really need them with the exception of the flower design, the back pleat stitching, and hat assembly.

The coat looks exactly like the pattern illustration. I found the band on the hat to be significantly narrower than the illustration. It makes it look quite different and necessitated putting the flower embellishment on the top of the hat instead of the band. The collar in this pattern lays exceptionally well. I used fleece for the under collar, instead of the broadcloth suggested by the pattern, and it still folds over well. The under collar is cut a little smaller, like I was taught it should, so it pulls the upper collar slightly under and holds the fold.

I was fun to sew a “fru fru” garment for a little girl, not something I usually get to do. I would sew this again and might try the women’s size without the “fru fru” for myself. I would definitely redraft the armscye and upper sleeve for better fit.