Birdie’s favourite animal is the Giraffe, so as soon as I saw the See You At Six Giraffe print sweatshirt terry at MaaiDesign, I knew I had to snap some up for her immediately! I was planning on making her a Mini Jarrah sweater, but she had other plans and very quickly requested a Giraffe Mini Jarrah sweater dress. I love taking my kids requests into account when making things for them, so one Saturday when I was working in the retail side of the studio I quietly worked on this sweater dress in-between lovely chats about sewing with our local makers.
Travelling outside of Western Australia isn’t really encouraged at the moment, as our borders are constantly being closed and reopened to try and control the spread of COVID, so instead we recently went down south WA to Albany for a mini holiday when school ended before Christmas. We booked the sweetest little farm stay which I’ve linked here incase anyone wants to check it out (Not sponsored, we just really loved it). I don’t think i’ve ever stayed at such a lovely AirBnB, the owners went above and beyond – they baked afternoon tea treats for us each day, and provided the kids with endless buckets of animal feed, and unlimited access to their goats, sheep and ponies. Obviously my kids never wanted to leave and I was in amateur photography heaven!
Anyway, back to sewing! I was a little nervous about Birdie’s sweater dress request as I’ve never successfully gotten her to wear one haha. But I went for it anyway, because that’s what she wanted, and used the same method as Holly details here for altering Jarrah or Mini Jarrah to be a dress. It was honestly super easy and very quick. Remember how I said I can’t resist my kids sewing requests? Well not only did she want a sweater dress for herself – but for her favourite stuffed Giraffe too. Who could say no to that?! Not me! So I did a very quick toy size mini jarrah, and must admit did not do any seam finishes, i just left them raw to roll up over time.
Of course Birdie then went and had a nice big growth spurt in the last 6 months so this sweater dress is a lot shorter on her than was intended back when i made it mid 2020 – but i’m actually not too bothered by that. She wears leggings with everything, so I don’t think it matters too much!
The leggings are the Mini Virginia leggings in the organic cotton jersey from my studio. I added the knee patches that are included with the pattern because my kids just blow holes through all the knees of all their pants – and as you can see from the colour of her knee patches, i’m super glad they are there!
I love how turned out and as a child who is often covered in chocolate or something sticky, I’m feeling quite happy about the burnt orange colour as it follows The Rules! I’m also so glad that Birdie likes it – but I must admit that (as expected) she doesn’t wear it a huge amount. I think at the end of the day a sweater can get thrown over everything, but a sweater dress is more of an “outfit”. By the time winter comes around this year I’m pretty tempted to chop it into a regular sweater length.
