A dress for my niece

I was asked if I would mind making a dress or two for my niece for Christmas.  I made one a-line dress but for the other, I thought I would make something a little fancier.  I used Simplicty 2677.

I picked a pretty blue floral print from Spotlight and teamed it with a crisp white for the contrast tie.

I think it turned out great.  I just hope it fits!  :)

A-line dress bonanza!

I managed to get a few A-line pinafores done for Christmas.  One was for my niece and the other two pinnies were for my own girls.  I used Simplicity pattern 5489, which is about as easy as it gets.  Although you do have to do two buttonholes, the bane of my existance!

I basically followed the pattern, just made each dress a little unique. All fabric was from Spotlight - they have a fabulous range at the moment. I hope they all fit now!  :)

Sneek peek at niece's dress

Pink and purple flowers, with purple batik border

Samantha's dress

Pink with a ruffle hem

Love the buttons!

I used an iron-on butterfly motif to give it some interest

Asha's dress ...

It's all in the fabric

what else but hooty owls for Asha?  :)

Oliver + S Birthday dresses

One set of patterns that I quite like are the Oliver + S childrens pattern (see http://oliverands.com/patterns/) which tend to be classic sewing patterns for children.  One of the patterns I have bought was the Birthday Party Dress pattern.  I was fortunate to win a some gorgeous pink floral twill fabric earlier in the year and I thought it would be perfect as a feature panel in the O+S dress.

Left : approx 20cm x 20cm section of fabric ; Right : a close-up of the print

The plan was to use 21-pinwale (lightweight) corduroy for the main body of the dress and the floral fabric for the feature panel.  I selected a bright yellow corduroy for Samantha's dress and a dark emerald green corduroy for Asha's dress (bought from Spotlight). 

Now, I have to say, I started these dresses months ago but they were left unfinished for a couple of months.  The delay was partly because I made Samantha's dress first and I was a little unimpressed by the instructions.  It took me a little while to figured out how I wanted to do it for Asha's dress.  And then once both dresses were almost done, I delayed because I had 10 buttonholes to do (seriously, I have an aversion to buttonholes).  Anyway, I finally finished them - here they are!

Asha's dress on the left, Samantha's dress on the right

Front and back of Samantha's dress

Asha's dress

Pleat detail on the front

Button detail on the back

a happy camper!  :)

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.  I have to mark up the pattern with the changes I have made so that I remember them for next time. 

Ladybug dress

Over Easter I managed to make a dress for Asha - the ladybug dress she has been asking for.  Again, just a simple A-line pinafore that I have done several times before (too easy, New Look pattern 6504) but I added an appliqued ladybug on the front.  All up, it was a day's work and Asha is thrilled with it.  I made size 3, as that is the smallest size in the pattern and I did shorten it slightly, but I probably could have still chopped 2 extra inches off the bottom.

On my sister's wise advice, I added some black dots on the wings.  I think they really do make it look much better

Ladybug size was based on a saucer from the holiday unit where we were staying at Easter!

And modelled by the happy recipient.  With this length, it should be okay for quite a few months!

The fabric came from Spotlight - I used a yellow soda denim (which has a small amount of stretch) and then a few quilting scraps to make the applique.  The dress itself sewed up very quickly, but the applique took me a few hours to do.

I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out.

First dress for 2011!

So I had all the best intentions to whip up a dress each for my two girls at the start of the new year, preferably within a couple of days.  Then I was stumped by fabric choice (I am seriously woeful at knowing what fabrics go together).  I also had great intentions of inserting flouncy sleeves into the pattern I was using (New Look pattern 6504), as well as inserting a box pleat into the skirt. And then I was stumped with how to insert the sleeves.  Mum was visiting me for a few days, so she helped me adapt the pattern (thanks Mum, couldn't have done it without you!).  I ended up ditching the sleeve idea, but we did managed to alter the pattern to include a box pleat in the skirt with a contrasting fabric.

I also had a go at doing some applique.  I have never attempted it before, so I was a bit nervous.  On advice from some other sewers (thanks EBers!), I used vlisoflix to attach the applique fabric.  I found out afterwards that I should have used a stabiliser underneath it all when I was doing the applique as that would have stopped the puckering.  It looks okay, but the stabiliser would have been good.  And I did get better as I did it.  I did the top applique first and it definitely looks rougher than the applique done on the skirt (probably should have done it the other way around).

Anyway, although I am rusty, I finally finished it.  Here it is! 

Samantha's pink 60's style dress!

The skirt applique (the better one)

Edge-stitching on the yoke top

The yoke



Yoke finish on the inside (no scratchy seams to bother Samantha)


Hopefully Samantha will love it.  I'll try to get a photo when Samantha wears it first.

Now to do Asha's dress ... and then a few potholders are beckoning ....

Edited to add a couple of photos with Samantha wearing the dress -

Feeling groovy!

And Asha was all excited too.  :)