For those of you who don’t know Peppa pig, let me introduce you. She’s a cute and wiggly little toddler pig with a British accent and a funny giggle who runs around having adventures with her piggy family. She looks something like this:
My cute, wiggly little toddler girl is on a Peppa kick, and Grandmaman surprised her with the Hug ‘n Oink Peppa Pig for Christmas. My daughter is quite enthralled with her new Peppa, so on boxing day, we set off on a Peppa sewing adventure.
I offered to sew Peppa a new dress since Peppa’s existing dress is a plain, un-fancy red. My daughter ran down to the fabric stash to pick something out. I shortly realized that a three-year-old’s version of a pretty new dress and mom’s idea are two very different things.
Of course, she picked the shiniest, slipperiest, stretchiest fabric she could find. I started trying to angle her to something a bit easier to work with since my sewing skills are admittedly fairly basic.
When negotiations weren’t going her way, she pulled out the big guns: “This one makes my heart so happy”. There’s no arguing with that!
Pattern making was pretty easy since we could just copy Peppa’s existing dress – no zippers, buttons, or Velcro. You just squish the dress off over her curly-tailed bottom to switch it out with the new one. Sewing with that fabric, on the other hand, was no treat. The fabric didn’t feed well through the machine foot, the thread tangled and snapped, things stretched and pulled.
After much teeth gnashing, moaning, and bemoaning the little miss’ fabric choice, I gave the machine up as a lost cause and hand-stitched the pieces together.
My daughter loves the new dress for Peppa Pig. Mission accomplished.
As I put little miss down for her nap, I kept thinking of the dress I had wanted to make.
Since it was a holiday and I was studiously avoiding all the things I should be doing, I snuck back off to my lair.
From there I commenced stitching a dress that wouldn’t hurt my eyes every time I looked at it. I added a quasi-box pleated hem, a collar, a button, and a whole lot less zazzle.
When I asked my daughter if I could try my dress on Peppa, she said (and I quote): “No thanks. I like the fancy one better”.
So there you have it: flash wins every time with a three-year-old. Heed this warning well!
3 replies on “Peppa’s Got a Brand New Dress”
You did great with both items, Martha! I’m not good with that slippery stuff either, but have been told I need to use a ballpoint pen and a slight zigzag due to the stretchiness of the material. She likes the glitzy one better 🙂 🙂 🙂 ! Yup, love it!
I just talked to my mom, and she remembers her mom covering the edges of said slippery fabric with masking tape before sewing, then removing the masking tape after. I’m going to try it next time, and will let you know how it goes!
Well done Martha! Both dresses are cute!