jellyfish dress

I got this fabric from spoonflower over a year ago. 
Sadie has been admiring it, off and on since then.  I finally decided to make her something out of it... a winter "twirling dress" to replace the much-loved summer one she wore into rags. I kind of made up the pattern loosely based on a favorite t-shirt.  It's nothing fancy.  The rest of the fabric is organic cotton knit jersey from fabric.com, I think--It's been in the stash for quite a while.

If you've never checked out spoonflower, you should.  They have a pretty innovative business going on.  Their organic cotton jersey knit is some of the most lovely fabric I've ever run my fingers across, but it is not cheap.  And oh, does it fade.  The original fabric is pictured above, and the dress below is after only one wash.  I was kinda bummed on this one, it faded more than usual, or, probably because of the darker dyes the fading was more noticeable.

 I understand that this is the life of the water based inks they use to print, combined with the fact that the knit fabric stretches while it washes and allows the ink to escape more, or something along those lines.  They suggest hand washing in cold water and line drying, but I really can't commit to that when using the fabric in a child's garment.  Oh well.  Sadie loves her dress anyways.  Loves it.  And her new red up-cycled sweater mocs that I can NOT get her to take off her feet...day or night.

Faded fabric, faded petunias, already faded memories of summer on these cold fall mornings. Who can complain of a cozy jellyfish twirling dress to warm you up from neck to ankles right? It does go so perfect with my little water moon child at least.