Desert Rose Dress 2

I made another Desert Rose Dress for K. I told ya I love this pattern!



Last time I made the tunic length, solely because I didn't have enough of my skirt fabric to make the longer version. This time I bought the fabric specifically for this pattern, so I had enough for the dress.



I added pockets this time, which she loved!



Flower buttons again, because they're cute!



I took these photos about a week ago, and the weather could not be more different today. Cold, blustery, and cloudy. I always think of fall as my favorite season, but oh am I sad to see summer leave this year!

McCall's M6923

I made a dress. For myself.



I know. Weird.

I'm not even a "dress person." But I sooo would like to be. I guess I grew up a little bit tomboy and now when I wear a dress I feel like I'm over-dressed. Like dresses should be saved for special occasions. I'm trying to reset my thinking. Watch out co-workers-- I might be wearing a dress soon! And no, I'm not going to a funeral after work.



The fabric is $3/yard clearance rack stuff, I didn't want to spend the big bucks on nice fabric in case this little dress experiment was a total failure. So, although i don't mind this fabric, it's definitely not my fav.

I expected to be using a size or two larger than my store-bought clothes. The size I went with was 3 sizes larger than my norm, but all my measurements were pretty spot on with that size, so I went with it. (Do you like how I'm not actually telling you what size I used? *wink*) Well, the first bodice I made was comically large. It was pretty ridiculous. I tried taking it in more than an inch on each side seam, but was still way too big. And it did weird things to the fit.



So I cut out another bodice two sizes smaller and it was a much better fit (thank goodness I bought extra clearance fabric!). It's still a bit gappy up by the neckline, but I think that's because I don't know how to make the proper pattern alterations for The Girls. I've read that patterns are made for b-cup sized woman, which I am definitely not. Perhaps I'll read up more on alterations before I try the next dress.



Trying to take photos of yourself is awful. Asking your husband to help you take photos may lead to divorce.

All in all, I'd call this first dress a success. Now, the real test is whether or not I'll actually wear it!

Desert Rose Dress & Tunic

I fell in love with the Desert Rose Dress pattern by CailaMade as soon as I saw it. I first spotted it months ago on Pinterest, before it was released. So the fact that I actually remembered to go buy it a few weeks ago when it was made available shows you how much I liked it.



These Park Slope prints are among my all-time favorite fabrics. I started K's birthday dress tradition with a dress made from these two fabrics. I had to make the tunic length of the Desert Rose pattern because, sadly, I didn't have enough fabric to make the longer length. Not to worry— I'm well on my way to making a full length dress version in some other fabrics!



I'm a sucker for cute buttons (who isn't?). I love when I have the perfect buttons for a project just waiting in my stash.



Seriously, I couldn't love this pattern anymore. You should make one too!

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.

KCW: Ruffle Dress

I've had this ruffle fabric in my stash for quite a while, and KCW was the push I needed to put it to use (I think I said that with the flannel jammie pants earlier this week too!).



I was inspired by this dress I pinned months ago.



It definitely took me longer than 20 minutes. I'm far too OCD to whip out a dress made of such fussy fabric that quickly. I had to take my time pinning the sides so that ruffles all lined up nicely. I think I did a pretty good job!



Since I was using this stretchy fabric, I tried a stretch stitch on my machine I never used before. It worked fabulously with this fabric!



I love that she still gets so excited for new clothes made by mommy!



And one more, just 'cause she's so darn cute....

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!

Shirred Sundress

I've caught the shirring bug again!



I realized a couple weeks ago that K doesn't have many summery dresses in her closet, and what's more comfortable than a dress in the summer? I wanted to make something nice and easy, so of course I thought of the shirred dress I made last summer. No pattern to cut out and directions to follow-- just a rectangle of fabric and some elastic thread!



I changed it up just a bit by making ruffly little straps. Again, just rectangles of fabric with a couple rows of elastic stitching. This stuff makes anything look fancier!



I had some trouble getting the tension figured out this time. The last time I worked with elastic thread I was using my old sewing machine and I tried using the same settings, but wasn't getting good results. I finally realized that I had to hold the tails of my top thread and elastic thread very tight for the first inch or so of stitching. Otherwise I was ending up with a loopy mess of elastic on the back. It may take a little time getting the tension worked out, but once you have the right settings, sewing with elastic thread is easy peasy! And the results are so fun!