An Over The Top Outfit

When you sew, sometimes you can afford to go all out!  (Especially when you refashion and have a large fabric stash.)

This is our interpretation of the Over The Top: Holiday Challenge from Pattern Revolution.  It all started with an Uptown/Downtown Dress we made.  Annie’s cousin saw and loved Annie’s Uptown/Downtown Dresses, so we decided to make one for the cousin and asked her favorite color (red) and something she liked (hearts) as well as preferences on pockets, sleeve and dress length, and neckline options.  Armed with that information we whipped out another Uptown/Downtown Dress.  All was going along just fine until we had Annie try the dress on for size/fit.  (The cousin being about the same size.)  Annie L.O.V.E.D. the dress and disconsolately insisted it was for her!  To appease her, I promised I’d make her something lavish.

While this Uptown/Downtown Dress is a very fancy version of the pattern, it is made of knit fabric, and Annie simply lives in one of her 2 dresses, they are so very comfortable.  The little black dots on the knit fabric are velvet, so that marries beautifully with the crushed velvet side of the cape and muff.  (That lovely, dotted knit is from JoAnn Fabrics.)

You may think we forgot about the request for hearts, but never fear, the pocket fabric is here!

To fulfill Annie’s request, we decided to make her a reversible cape, hat and reversible muff.  After all, every six year old needs a faux fur and velvet cape, hat and muff combo with a little lace and ribbon thrown in, amiright?  The faux fur for the hat and one side of the cape and muff was in our stash, and the crushed velvet skirt was in our refashion pile.  Although Aria did pull it out for a costume post last year.

An Over The Top outfit needs a hat, don’t you think?  (Pun intended, of course!)  Do you recognize the hat?  It is the same pattern we used for Annie’s refashioned leather jacket last year.  She outgrew the leather jacket, so it was time for another luxurious covering!

The muff I made lightly using the tutorial from The Sewing Rabbit.  Except I made Annie’s reversible.  Allegra added the embellishments to the muff and hat, and I think they are just perfectly over the top!

To make the cape reversible, I started with this vintage Little Vogue cape pattern, (from my stash, of course!) but changed the shape of it a little to work with the constraints of the size of the crushed velvet skirt.  I used the first three tiers of the skirt for the cape, and managed to eek the collar and muff from the remaining tier.  I had already used some of that last tier for the waistband of the Uptown/Downtown Dress.  I just sandwiched a satin ribbon between the two layers to make a tie front closure, but after seeing Annie wear it (for the last 12 hours both in and out of the house!) I will go back and add another tie closer to the neckline.  This tie feature makes the cape reversible, the collar just flips to either side.  I also eliminated the buttons under the arms to make it more easily reversible.

Before we mailed the dress off to the cousin, we took some photos of the entire ensemble.  Everything coordinates perfectly because the waistband on the dress and one side of the dress and muff all come from the same crushed velvet skirt.

Of course Annie had to wear high heels for modeling this outfit.  That makes it all the more close to an Over The Top outfit, right?

Allegra, Aria, Annie and I are all debating which combination of the outfit we love the best.  There are so many different combination possibilities due to the reversible nature of both the cape and muff.

Annie pretended to be a Russian czarina for the photo shoot.  Due in equal parts to the temperature outside, the shape of the hat, and the extreme opulence of the outfit!  What do you think, it is Over The Top?  (And if you think this is Over The Top, go over to Pattern Revolution and see the others!)