Etage Dress Review from Hand-Me-Downs!

We had the honor of testing the Etage Top and Dress for Terri of Sew Straight and Gather.  And entirely by accident, we had to use hand-me-downs for the fabric, thus qualifying for the week 2 theme over at Project Run & Play: “The Hand-Me-Down Makeover.”  Here’s the totally by accident part…the Etage top and dress uses knit fabric, and in our closest, very small town, there is one source of knit fabric; Walmart.  Now combine a short time table to test the Etage, a WIDE selection of 3 (THREE??!!!!) knit fabrics at aforementioned fabric mecca (dripping with sarcasm here!) and only 5/8 yard remaining of the only one that was close to being suitable.  Those components meant I walked over to the women’s section and bought another dress from the clearance section, just like the one I’d bought a week earlier for myself.

Then I went home and dug through my closet and came up with three more knit fabric items:

The dress I’d bought earlier (I was wearing it as a skirt…a byproduct of being 6′ tall!)

A grey skirt.

And a blue dress I’d already refashioned once.   I had enough knit fabric from these items to make a top for Aria, a dress for Annie, and a scrap of fabric leftover for David’s turtleneck.  Not the failure it first appeared to be!

Terri is going to release the Etage pattern for purchase very soon, and this is one I think you are going to want to add to your collection.

Anne is so in love with her dress.  She wasn’t too enthused with the picture on the pattern, or the fabric, but once she slipped the dress on, she was sold!

She loves to twirl, and this dress is perfect for that floaty, twirly, perfection.  The asymmetrical layers create not only a fun look, but twirling pleasure.

This dress is entirely lined, which makes it not only comfortable and warm, but modest too.  You could also use some of those dreamy, lightweight, semi-transparent knits on the market too.

Aria didn’t really love the shape of the overall finished Etage top I made her, but because it is soooo comfortable, she plans to wear it to sleep in!

And David is so very happy that he got included in another sewing project and photo shoot.

This time we went to a park again.  This particular park is so very large and fun that what inevitably happens is the kids split and getting a photo of them together is impossible.  But the separate photos Allegra got are awesome as usual.

I noticed a trend when sewing this time; boys ask for nouns and girls make their requests in the form of adjectives (pink dress, twirly skirt, long skirt!).

That’s why David has gotten a boat shirt, a zebra shirt, a fox shirt and this elephant shirt.

This elephant shirt fulfills the challenge we got from Elsie Marley.  #creativeassignmenttwofer  Our two words were Stripes + Elephant.

We’re pretty happy with our creative result.  We used an old stained turtle neck of Annie’s from last winter with hot cocoa stains on the front!  Perfect for a reverse appliqué elephant!

The only thing not upcycled from this project is the second contrasting layer of Annie’s dress.  That’s the gorgeous knit fabric I got from FabricWorm.  Remember, I bought 1/2 yard of each of the 4 colors.  I used the first one here.  If you come back tomorrow, you’ll see another one!  Three down, one to go, and loving every inch of them!

If you’re wondering, like I was, what Etage means, Terri enlightened me: it’s French for tiers.  Appropriate, eh?

The back of the Etage dress is just as fun as the front:

So what could have been a colossal fail turned out into 3 garments that will be worn and worn and worn!

Now we have 2 assignment for you:

Go buy an Etage top and dress pattern for your little twirler!

Go check out all the fun things made from hand-me-downs over at Project Run & Play.

Have a twirly, happy, fun day!