Sunday, February 21, 2016

Four Candidates

I bought this slightly sheer deep Prussian blue and black rayon/lycra jersey to make a self-lined dress for myself. But, DD exclaimed that it was fantastic and claimed it for herself. I am an indulgent mother. (I got the ~5 yard piece at SAS Fabrics by the pound so I may be able to get dresses for both of us out of it if I use another fabric for the lining.)

DD and her team are heading to the California State Academic Decathlon Championships again.  The 2016 schedule is not up yet, but you can look at the 2015 competition schedule.  The on-line schedule does not mention the Saturday night dance for competitors.

Suppose you were making a dress for a 15-year-old to wear to the dance (and in her regular wardrobe.)  What do you think she'd like?  And would be age-appropriate?

If you go to the AcaDec site, you can learn about how AcaDec started in CA (actually, LA).  If you took the top 100 teams in the nation, a majority would be from CA--mostly SoCal.  So now, only 2 teams from each state get to go to the National Championships.  Rhode Island sent 2 of their 3 teams to nationals last year.  But, CA also sent 2 out of their hundreds of teams.

The season for most kids in CA ends on Saturday night.  They worked hard and want to let off steam with other nerds.  I want my kid to have a nice new outfit for that.

I have a heavy post coming up about the Oscars and fairness.  The situation infuriates me, but I'm still carefully thinking through what I want to say and how to support it.

In the mean time, please help me select a pattern for DD's dress.
  1. McCalls 5974 (faux wrap)
  2. Simplicity 1018 (might not be appropriate for such l/w knit)
  3. Simplicity 1102 (cold shoulder, shorter length, raise neckline)
  4. Simplicity 1653 (faux wrap)
BTW, did you catch the NPR story (might have ran on Weekend Edition or All Things Considered on Feb 6, 2016) about DD's all-girl AcaDec team? AcaDec is dominated by boys. But, this year, all 9 of her school's A-team members are girls. Actually, all 9 of the B-team are also girls. The teacher selected the 18 highest-scoring students and they all happened to be girls.

DD thought beforehand about what she should say for radio and gave a great sound-bite.

UPDATE: 1102 it is!  Cold shoulder, knee length, raised neckline.

She also said that the dance last year was gross and she is going to hang around the hotel with her friends instead.  Whew!  This relieves the deadline pressure.

9 comments:

  1. I really like the cold shoulder version, but all of them are nice for teens.

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  3. Link! Link! We want a link! Many congrats to your bright and shining DD.

    My favorites are 1018 & 1653. 5974 comes in last for me, it seems too old for a 15 year old. A dangerous question, I know, but have you asked your DD?

    Apologies for the blank comment.

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  4. I like the cold shoulder one best, even though it looks the most time-consuming.

    I asked her, but she is too busy to reply. I told her a reply takes less time than the time I would invest in making the dress. Sigh.

    Her AcaDec teacher is trying to get a link from KPCC, our local public radio affiliate, who produced the segment. I'll provide a link when we get it.

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  5. I think 1563 would work well. I've made 5974,and it ends up to have many layers at the waist.

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  6. Also, I have some of that fabric (or very, very similar) and it's not what I expected. I'm happy to send you what I have if you want it. bmarks at runbox dot com

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  7. Love the faux wrap. I did Academic Octathlon in HS. Good luck!!

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  8. Anonymous07:42

    1102 - wrap dresses always struck me as being for older people, not for teens.

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  9. The cold shoulder one (with your alterations) seems most age appropriate, fashionable, and not awkward for a dance (no wrap skirt to flip open, for example).

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