Welcome to Day 3 of the blog tour for the
Haven Acres Mini Collection! Jennifer from
Jennuine Designs created this beautiful equestrian-inspired collection, consisting of a pretty blouse, well-fitting leggings, and a totally adorable cap.
Jennifer's design is unique, but I'm even more impressed with her pattern! It looks so professional - from the beautiful watercolour cover to the thorough and easy to understand directions and perfect pattern pieces! One of my favourite things about Jennifer's pdf patterns is that she uses layers for the different sizes, so you can just turn off the sizes you don't need and print just one size, or two if you need to grade between sizes!
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| Sweet Pea Cap |
It's been a long haul, testing this collection over the last couple of months but Jennifer stuck to it and has this beautiful pattern collection to show for it.
The
Dressage Leggings pattern has options for basic leggings or the equestrian-style paneled version, and each of those versions also has a regular rise or a high rise for the smaller sizes, to accommodate cloth diapers. The leggings fit great and the paneled pattern pieces are perfectly drafted to make them easy to put together, including an option for flat-felled seams for comfort. This first pair I made out of a tan ponte di roma - since then a few tweaks have been made to the pattern to perfect the fit.
The little red plaid blouse is the pre-test version of the
Haven Acres Blouse - since then the length of sleeves and bodice have changed a bit and the front keyhole is a slightly different shape. I used a pretty soft cotton lawn plaid for a more country feel riding blouse, and she adores it. The blouse has the prettiest little peplum flounce with elastic casing at the waist, softly puffed sleeves in two lengths, and a bias-bound neckline with an elastic loop/button closure under a ribbon, or the option to add ties over the keyhole.
Here's the back of the Dressage Leggings for a better view of the riding-inspired panels:
And the last piece in the collection is the
Sweet Pea Cap, the most adorable little riding-style cap because PONY EARS! (or so I am told by little miss.)
One of the testers also came up with a
sweet design for kitten ears, which Jennifer kindly added to the pattern for even more options. The cap is a super simple sew with several sizes based on head measurements (thankfully! My girlie has a huge head for a 3 year-old).
I did another pair of the Dressage Leggings and a blouse, all in colours to mix & match. For the leggings I used stretch denim with a red ponte di roma for the inner panels, and went up one size to account for the denim not being as stretchy. They fit like a dream on my skinny, no-butt girl!
Love the red topstitching. I had to use a regular needle in two passes instead of a twin needle because of the denim, and just regular thread to topstitch.
This version of the Haven Acres Blouse I used a soft jersey knit instead of a woven, just to try it out. I love the result!
Details of this blouse: I used her regular size, the size 3, just with a little added length to account for her long back. Instead of using binding at the neck, I drew a facing pattern based on the necklines combined with the keyhole facing.
I cut out the facing pieces from the same fabric and stitched them together at the shoulders. The I finished the outer edge with the serger (alternatively, this could be left raw, as jersey wouldn't fray).
Once I had sewn the shoulder seams of the blouse together as per the pattern, I pinned and sewed the neckline facing in place, and then stitched the keyhole opening as the pattern describes. From there it was simple to turn the facing inside and tack it down just at the shoulder seam. Alternatively it could be topstitched down all the way around, either very close to the neckline or close to the outer edge of the facing.
Thanks for the opportunity to test such a unique collection, Jennifer! I know there are more pairs of Dressage Leggings for sure and also another Haven Acres Blouse on the horizon for Abigail!
Check out the rest of the tour for more amazing versions of this collection!
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