Birthday Dresses

Way back in March, this girl turned 5.



And even though it was quite a messy time in our lives, I still managed to continue my tradition of making her birthday dress. (See previous birthday dresses here: Two, Three, and Four)



I had originally planned to use the Oliver + S Ice Cream Dress pattern, but I decided I was too pressed for time and needed to make something more simple. Thanks to Pinterest, this Striped Relay Dress from iCandy-Handmade was floating around in my mind and was just the quick sew I needed.



This was the first time I made her a dress out of knit fabric and she absolutely LOVED it! Every time she wears it she talks about how comfy it is. My fear of knits is slowly fading. I've made her a couple of Recess Raglan t-shirts in knit fabrics too. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to showing those off here too. :)



I paired it with a navy blue cardigan from Target. Coral + Navy = Love.

And, like every other little girl in the world, she loves the movie Frozen. Back at the time of her birthday, we were deep in Frozen obsession mode and she was asking to watch the movie every day. So I made her a Queen Elsa dress as a gift.



I made it very similarly to how I made her princess Halloween costume a couple years ago. The girl loves to play dress-up and that costume is still in heavy dress-up rotation. Even though it's getting a bit small, and to be honest, a bit shabby looking. But, oh, does it make my heart happy that she loves to wear something I made for her so much that it's getting worn out.



I really should make her a princess dress in every color. She's just so darn cute when she's in dress-up mode.

Oliver + S: Family Reunion Dress

We celebrated my daughter's fourth birthday this past weekend and, in keeping with tradition, I made her a special birthday dress.
(You can see the third birthday dress here and the second birthday dress here.)



I absolutely love this dress. Not only because it turned out great, but also because I tried a few things I've never done in clothes sewing before and I'm pretty proud of myself for it! More on that later...



Can you ever go wrong with an Oliver + S pattern? I can't say enough how much I like these patterns. The instructions are always clear and easy to understand. All the little details make for such a beautiful finish. But all those wonderful details do take time and this dress may have been a bit ambitious for the time frame I had to work in.



You'll notice that this is not the same pattern and fabric I posted when I first mentioned working on a birthday dress for K. I was having issues with the foot pedal of my sewing machine and knew I needed to get it in for service. Having dealt with my slow (and most-unfriendly) machine dealer before, I knew I'd be without my machine for at least a couple of weeks. So I quickly whipped up that dress before I took the machine in to the dealer. Well, the dress turned out too big. And rather than try to alter the dress to make it fit better (which I'm not confident I'd be able to do properly), I decided I'd just make a whole new dress. The first dress will fit eventually (and maybe I've got birthday #5 dress done already!).



So I got my sewing machine back about a week before K's birthday and set to work! When I say I was working on this dress until the last minute, I'm not exaggerating. I had purchased buttons for the back of the dress a few days before, but had forgotten about the decorative buttons for the front tab. The party started at 2 on Saturday, and at 12:30 I was running to the store to find buttons for the front tab.

So what about those new things I tried with this dress? Well K is on the tall side and I always add an inch or two to the hem of any dress or skirt I make for her. Luckily with this dress pattern, I thought far enough ahead to realize that if I just extended the lines of the dress (and followed the outward curve), the hem facing wouldn't fit without adjustment too. So this time, I lengthened the pattern the "proper" way and added an inch to the body of the dress at one of the notches. Check out this Oliver + S post for more info about lengthening and shortening patterns. I usually trace patterns onto freezer paper and in the photo below you can see how I've sliced the pattern and added in the extra length.



I also made my own piping for the dress! I saw some other Family Reunion Dresses on Flickr that inserted piping around the neck and button tab and just loved it. Since I couldn't find any pre-made piping the right color, I made my own by cutting bias strips,inserting yarn in the fold, and then stitching it closed using my zipper foot.



It's the perfect pop of color on the dress!



K had a wonderful birthday party, and she looked great too!

WIP Wednesday - 2/27/13

I've turned these leftover strips:



Into this quilted pillow cover (in progress, obviously):



I quilted vertical lines on the pieced strips and then some angles in the negative space on the sides. Now I have to decide if this is enough, or if I want to continue those angles to fill all the negative space. What do you think- leave it or add more?



And, in keeping with tradition, I plan to make a birthday dress for K. I had been browsing around for a dress pattern when I stumbled upon this Paper Fan Dress. It's a (free!) pattern from Anna Maria Horner and I just love the pleating details.



I started cutting the pieces yesterday and am anxious to start sewing! It was pretty gray and dreary when I took this photo, so the color isn't very accurate, but I swear these fabrics look good together!

WIP Wednesday - 3/14/12

It's been a few weeks since I last wrote a WIP post, so here's what I've been up to!

Rose Star Quilt



It may not look much different from the last time I showed this quilt, but I swear there's been some progress! There are soooo many little seams to stitch up between these blocks. Oh, and the fact that I'm doing it by hand makes it slow going.

K's Birthday Dress

I've cut out all the pattern pieces and the sewing has begun. Here's the bodice, with ties attached, and the sleeves.



Threading the 1/4" elastic through those little sleeves took every ounce of patience I had. I stitched a thick thread to one end of the elastic and then used an extra long needle to pull it through the tiny casing. On the second sleeve my thread broke twice as I was pulling it through- frustrating! And I can look forward to this frustrating process again as I have to use the same elastic around the entire neckline. I may need a glass of wine first.



Postage Stamp Quilt

A few days ago I saw this post on Oh, Fransson! and really wanted to try out Elizabeth's technique of using fusible interfacing for piecing small patches. So I've started cutting out little squares!



I plan to make a little doll quilt with these squares and use it as a birthday gift for K.

Linking up to Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday Linkup!