Abbie's New Purple Dress!

It wouldn't be fair for me to make Evie a dress and not make one for Abbie. So, I let Abbie pick the pattern she wanted me to use and I made this for her while she was at a family reunion for about a week with her grandparents. That was a couple weeks ago, but today she wanted to wear it so I snapped the first pic of her in it. She's so adorable in it!

Pattern - New Look 6907

Size - 5, this gives her a little room to grow as she's petite for her size

Fabric - Either linen or cotton (very linen like texture and wrinkles if you look at it funny like linen) for the dress, quilt cotton for the contrast, all was in my stash for a long time. I also used a zipper I had already, and used purple thread.

Time - I guess it took me a total of about 4 hours. I spread that out over a few days so I could take my time. I didn't get to fit it on Abbie as I went since she was out of town. I'm glad it fit her when it was done!

Lesson learned - I finally learned the value of finishing the edges on woven fabric. Evie's dress has raveled on some of the unfinished edges (need to bind them now) and I make sure to zigzag stitch all of the edges of this dress before I sewed a single piece to another. Held up to washing SO MUCH BETTER! This was my first time doing patch pockets. So incredibly easy!

Abbie loves her new dress. Especially the pockets!

Vogue 1176 Michael Kors Sundress Muslin

This dress is moving along quicker than I expected! Totally a good thing! Today I got the straps and skirt completed, and they are both attached to the bodice.

It looks so good so far! Everything is lining up perfectly and it's looking like it will fit exactly like I wanted it to. I'm going to do the fitting after I finish the lining and put it in. There is no zipper in this dress yet, but I'll be basting one in to get the real deal on fitting. That little bit will be done after dinner tonight. I'm so pumped about this dress muslin!

Oooo... A Challenge!

So, I have a birthday coming up. May 24th, to be exact. I host a party every year to celebrate, but I hold it on the first Saturday in June since at least half the people I know are out of town Memorial Day weekend (which always follows my birthday). This year I decided to start going with a theme and with the help of my friend, Heather Brooks, I chose to do a retro Tiki Party theme. I saw Vogue's V1176, a Michale Kors dress, and knew it would be PERFECT!

Isn't that bodice detail awesome?! I love it!

The bodice front is really the only somewhat complicated part of this average difficulty pattern. The dress is fully lined and has a self-fabric belt.  I started my muslin today and the bodice is complete. That's steps 1-12 of the instructions, out of 73 steps!

 

I'm making the muslin out of a plain white full-size flat sheet. I haven't pressed the seams yet, so they are a little wrinkly looking.

 

Close-up of that drape detail. It is open behind it to slip the bow into.

 

And I recently took that disaster of a little brown dress and used it to make my too-small dress form fit my measurements. It's stuffed with newspaper right now, as I have no batting on hand. I'll remedy that soon, though. The muslin is lining up, centers, bust points, waistline and sides, perfectly! Woo hoo!

Straps and skirt will be done tomorrow. After that is the lining and bow. My deadline to have a finished dress is June 1. If the rest of the dress goes as smoothly as this bodice muslin did I don't see any problem meeting that deadline.

Evie's New Dress

Pattern - Simplicity 2677

Size - 6, this gives her a little room to grow as she's petite for her size

Fabric - Unknown synthetic woven for the dress, quilt cotton for the contrast, all was in my stash for a long time. I also used a zipper I had already, and used purple thread (that matches some of the polka dots on the belt) instead of blue. It gives the dress a really nice detailed look.

Time - I guess it took me a total of about 5 hours. I spread that out over a few days so I could take my time, fit it on Evie as I went, and make sure I did it correctly.

Lesson learned - I'm no longer afraid of sewing in zippers! I literally tackled the zipper in this without a single intimidating thought. Yay! And I tried a new technique for gathering on the sleeves. So much faster and just as effective! I also added fusible interfacing to my pattern pieces as I'm sure this will be a dress made many times over as my girls get older.

Sew Disasterous!

So, I was plugging right along on my little brown dress using brown stretch sateen and this pattern:

I'm making it plain front like the first dress, short sleeved like the second dress, and v-neck like the third dress. Well, I didn't read the directions fully before starting (MAJOR mistake that lead to subsequent mistakes) and ended up with really messed up things going on with the dress by the time I realized it. This dress is more challenging than anything I've sewn before, so it's been a real learning experience. I'm not even going to attempt to rip the seams out at this point. That would be more than it's worth. I just placed an order last night with Denver Fabrics for more fabric to make this dress over again. With my newly gained knowledge it should go off without too many problems the second time around. Luckily I got the fabric on clearance both times now so I'm not out much financially. And yes, I did make a muslin. The fit is fine, it's the seams that are wonky all over the place. Oops.. Totally my fault. The pattern and instructions are pretty well flawless, if you read before you start. Instructions are what I look at after my attempt without them fails. lol

So, while I'm waiting for my new fabric to arrive I am going to make a dress for each of my little girls. First I'm making one for Evie with some solid cornflower blue fabric as the main dress fabric, and sky blue with multicolored polka dots fabric as the contrast fabric. I'm using this pattern:

It should be adorable when finished. I read a tip online somewhere about ironing patterns to fusible interfacing to increase the pattern's durability. I did that just a few moments ago because I'm sure this will be a dress I make a few times as my girls get bigger.

For Abbie I'm not yet sure what fabric I'll be using and I'll be making this pattern:

Now Abbie and I are going to have some lunch and I'll work on her big sister's dress during nap time.