Pattern Hack: based on the Go To Dress

As I was organizing my patterns a few weeks ago, I was excited to come across one I had printed out ages ago and had yet to make.  It was the Go To Dress from Train to Crazy, and I had some more of this purple jersey sheet that I had been wanting to make a dress out of for Little Sister, particularly because I had a ribbed tank to cut up and use for some cute binding.

Yes, she is holding a waffle.

So I got my pattern all cut out and taped together for a size 3, and I went to the site to find the directions.  Except...the pattern that was a freebie when I printed it out is now only available for purchase (it's a super cute dress)--so the tutorial is no longer on the website!

Pattern available from The Train to Crazy

I guess what a sane person would do is just purchase the pattern so that they knew how to use the pattern they had, but I am clearly not that person.   [Edited to add--I was going to put a link here to the site where you can purchase the pattern, for those of you who are more sane than I, but...I couldn't find it!  If I can track down where to buy the pattern I'll add the link here, or please let me know if you know where to get it!]

Since I was planning on making some adaptations anyway, I just went for it.  As you can see from the differences in the pictures, I pretty much only used the pattern for the main body of the dress--I incorporated the gathers in front and in the back, but left out the sleeves (both the long ones and the cap sleeves).  I had been planning to just do the cap sleeves, but without instructions I thought I'd better just keep it simple.

cute printed binding cut from a ribbed cotton tank

I used this method for binding the neckline, and just this simple method (she uses it for the neckline, but you can see how to do it) for the armholes.  I used my double needle to hem the bottom, and I was planning on doing an elastic waist, but when I tried it on the girl to see where to put the waistband, she declared that she liked it just as it was, and that she wanted to wear it right then.

Which should have been great, right?  I mean, she loves it!  She wants to wear it!  Except...

Before we even got out of the house, she managed to grind a wad of silly putty firmly into the backside.

Well, that doesn't look so bad, you might say...

Nope, it's pretty bad.

I thought I might just have to cut the bottom off, add a wide band of that printed ribbing, and turn it into a super cute tank top.  Honestly, that probably should have been the way to go (less time and effort, for sure), but Little Sister was SO SAD that I would turn her long long dress into a shirt that I decided to take a crack at Silly Putty removal.

According to Crayola's website (the makers of Silly Putty), you scrape off as much putty as possible with a blunt knife, then soak the area with WD-40 (which I had to purchase, making stain removal the most expensive part of this garment) and let it sit for about 5 minutes.  Then scrape again, respray with WD-40, and wipe stain off with cotton balls.  Summarized, but you get the idea.

Well.  It went fine until the "wipe stain off with cotton balls" part.  Not sure what I was supposed to be wiping off.  The putty was pretty much gone at this point, so was I supposed to wipe off the WD-40?  Hmm.  The wiping with a cotton ball did exactly nothing.

They go on to say that if any stain remains, soak a cotton ball with rubbing alcohol, blot the stain and rinse, then wipe remaining residue away with a dishcloth with a few drops of dish soap.  I guess they must have meant that if there was any PUTTY remaining, but I was more concerned with the WD-40 stain all over the back of the dress, and I had heard that dish soap (specifically Dawn) was good for removing that kind of thing, so I thought maybe they were referring to the WD-40 stain after all.  So I did the cotton ball with rubbing alcohol thing, then rubbed again with a sponge with Dawn on it, and threw it in the wash.

Good thing I checked before tossing it in the dryer, because...drum roll...giant WD-40 grease stains all over the back of the dress.  They even seemed to have spread out a bit.

But the happy ending is that I soaked all the grease stains with my Oxy-Clean Max Force Gel stain removal stick, and it all came out just fine.

Not sponsored or anything--it's just what was in my laundry room and it worked.

I tried to get a photo of the revived back of the dress while she was wearing it today...

You might have to take my word for it that the stains are gone--this is the best I could do.

But she just didn't want to take a break from her Jedi training with her big brother to let me get a photo.

I can't say I blame her.

It looked pretty fun.

"You know, I think you'll be a pretty good Jedi."