FINISHED! Splattered Turia Dungafores

A few weeks ago the very lovely Mel was visiting Canberra and a few of us were lucky enough to catch up with her for a little bit of local shopping at Addicted to Fabric. It had been a while (days? weeks?) since I'd been to Addicted to Fabric and so there was quite a few new pieces of fabric to peruse. The one that caught my eye was this one called Ricochet. (97% cotton, 3% spandex). At first I thought I'd make a dress out of it, but it is quite thick and very quickly my mind turned to the pinafore dungaree, which Pauline had just done a tutorial out of the Turia pattern. Egged on by Amanda's new coined phrase, the dungafore, I was on my way, crossing off the current trends of painted fabric and overalls all in one hit.

This week I finally got around to making them.  Well, correction, this week I became obsessed with making them. Every night I sewed for hours, quietly chipping away at them, fluctuating from love to fear back to love. Would they be too 'out there', 'not age appropriate', blah blah blah. Now they are finished I love them. (Although after looking at a lot of photos taken of me wearing them I wish I'd got that print placement a bit better in the front !!! Damn!)

I made this pattern, the Turia up in the long version previously as a tester.  I love those and wear them on the weekend heaps, but it's not my best sewing so on these I made sure that the stitching on these is much sturdier. I ensured that I overlocked every edge, rather than just folding and stitching.

I also cheated a little bit and I only did fake flat felled seams: stitching the seams together, overlocking then double stitching in place. This is easier but the main reason was that I can get a much neater finish on the outside with my twin needle.

I like my dungarees a bit loose so after reading that Sasha (via Ninie (who also made the cutest pair of short dungarees)) didn't need a zipper in hers I decided that I didn't either. They pull on easily because of the stretch in the fabric.

Pauline in her tutorial reminds you to add extra length onto the pattern if you are making a pinafore, but clearly I didn't add enough on.  Ben liked it the length it was, but it just seemed way too short, even for me who doesn't mind showing the old pins.  I rectified this afterwards, with a design feature additional panel to make them more a decent length!

I am super happy with my dungafores (print placement aside) and cannot wait for the weekend to come around so that I can wear them, with any number of striped tops in my wardrobe(!), my favourite neutral, before this fad disappears.