Did you know the Narwhal is called the Unicorn of the sea? We love this special looking creature in our house. I decided to make one for my friend’s daughter’s birthday dress. You can see the other dress I made for her last year here.
What’s a Narwhal?
If you have never heard of a narwhal, it is a type of whale, a mammal and carnivore. The male narwhals have the unicorn looking tusks that are spiral in nature; and can grow up to 10 ft! Research indicates the tusk is like a tooth and has sensory reception.
Narwhals live in the Arctic circle and do not migrate like other whales. They eat fish, squid and shrimp.
The people threat to narwhals – climate change along with oil and gas drilling are leading to more ships traveling the icy waters that narwhals call home; increasing the risk of collisions.
Aren’t they fascinating?
Narwhal Embroidery
I’ve seen some cute narwhal pictures along with others like from the Narwhal and Jelly books. If you have kids, this series should be on your reading list!
My embroidery went towards the cute narwhals.
I wanted it a bit more magical so chose a metallic thread for the tusk! The narwhal is an iron-on which I finished off with some stars around it. Isn’t it adorable?!
Dress Pattern Review
Back to the dress – I used the Little Lizard King pattern Morgan. I was first drawn to this pattern for it’s puffed long sleeves. I have yet to make that version – it might make an appearance in probably in the fall!
The dress has a lined bodice. I made it without lining because it was a summer dress. I did a binding to finish the neckline.
The Morgan comes in different lengths – top, knee, and maxi. This one is the knee length.
With three sleeve options, you can customize your look even further – short puff sleeve with band, long puff sleeve (juliette), and another long sleeve this one with triple puffs. The one I made was a short puff with the band.
The only other modification was to hem it with a rolled hem on the serger, using a magenta thread.
The instructions are pretty thorough with size blending instructions as well. I didn’t really use the directions as much as I used to 5 years ago. I do glance through the steps to see which steps I might want to print and reference later. In this case, I printed the directions for the sleeves.
I like that there is a cutting chart for the gathered fabrics so you don’t have to spend time taping rectangles. However, taping the rectangles isn’t bad either because you can fold up to the size you want instead of cutting or printing each size separately.
There was one thing I found that was a bit confusing – the sleeve band said to “cut 2 on fold” but it was twice as long as it needed. It probably needs to be “cut 2” that’s it.
Fabric
Pattern calls for knit fabric – which means no closures!
Both the Magenta and Confetti Dots fabrics are from Raspberry Creek; cotton jersey with lycra. They are a good weight and were very nice to sew with.
This dress looked great as is, but doesn’t it look even better with the narwhal embroidery? Slide the arrow on the picture to see the before and after!
Links and patterns mentioned in this post are listed below for your convenience.
P.S. This post may contain affiliate links, but I only promote things I know, love and think could be highly beneficial to you! Plus, you get to help me out with a small commission if you purchase through these links with no extra cost to you. All opinions expressed here are my own.
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