Hello! My name is Kelle and I usually blog at justsewsomething.com. You can see more of my work on Instagram, all around Facebook, and here with Amelia Lane Designs.
It’s back-to-school time! And with this being the first in-person schooling for my girls in months, I thought it would be nice to have some new clothes. With the help from the Sew Your Stash challenge, a bunch of great ALD fabric, and a few simple patterns, I managed to sew up a teen-friendly wardrobe in just a week.
Our first sew is a classic Amelia Lane Designs Dream Tee in dress length. We used Evans rib knit for this beauty. You will notice a rib knit theme to this capsule. My daughter loves the softness and slight texture rib knits provide. This small floral print and beautiful pastel coloring were a great inspiration for the rest of the capsule. We did make a couple of modifications to the pattern. First, we changed the scoop of the neck by using the crewneck blog tutorial. We also added front pockets (not included in the pattern) to emulate a ready-to-wear dress my daughter loved.
Since the Dream Tee pattern was ready to go, it was super simple to cut a shirt length. We used one blog hack to add sleeve cuffs and another to make gathered sleeves. I love this version and how much fancier it looks than a plain tee, but takes minimal effort to sew. This fabric is the lavender DBP, basic and beautiful.
We decided some leggings were in order (what’s a back-to-school capsule without leggings?). If you are an ALD devotee, these might look familiar. These are the Love Notions Resolution Leggings, complete with a hidden pocket. The pattern includes 3 other knit pant variations if you aren’t a fan of leggings. The navy pin dot DBP made super soft leggings in a print and color that will coordinate with everything.
The George and Ginger Teen Spirit is one of my daughter’s favorite shirts. I love this oversized dolman because it’s super easy to sew and has some fun variations. Here we went with a cropped high/low length and added a hood. We used more rib knit, this time the cantaloupe rib solid, that is so soft and, coincidentally, also looks fabulous with our navy pin dot leggings.
The crop top is paired with another of my daughter’s favorite patterns, the George + Ginger Seether Skirt. This skirt pattern is drafted to use woven fabric. My daughter, however, insisted she needed a new black skirt to replace her outgrown previous version. The only black fabric in my stash was black french terry from ALD. I was feeling lucky so I crossed my fingers and went with it. To my surprise, it worked great! The french terry has enough structure to give the skirt shape and it’s incredibly comfortable to wear. I bet you could even skip installing the zipper, but I kept it for a fun design feature.
As it’s still plenty hot during back-to-school in August, we went ahead and made a Jalie Patterns Bonnie romper. This is part of the brand new pattern collection and it’s everything my daughter loves in a romper. It has pockets, the shorts aren’t too short, and the neckline is a comfortable level. Again, we used rib knit. Though this Quill fabric has wider ribs than our other rib knits, it’s still incredibly soft with lovely drape. The subtle butterfly print was teen approved, and this outfit will be perfect for riding her bike to school.
I very much wanted to take a few more mix and match photos, but the teen was done modeling at this point. I promise all the pieces look great together. At least I got some nice back-to-school props in there.
And there you have it- a bunch of basic sews to start a teen-approved wardrobe for school! Sew some of your stash today… or maybe find a few new favorites!
All fabrics have convenient links and are in stock at the time of this post.
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