I really know I’m getting over the newborn days when I get to switch on my sewing machine and do a spot of sewing. I just feel normal and like my old self again when I get the chance. For anyone new here, I love to sew. I love craft full stop but I love getting the time to sit at my machine.
I picked it up again when keira was a baby and haven’t stopped since…………well except each time I have a new baby. Summer is a great excuse to make up some simple dresses for my girls. They don’t cost a lot of money to make, they’re easy (I avoid any girls pattern with a zipper in it) and my girls love wearing them. I do find it hard to pay $60 for a cotton dress when I can make my own in an afternoon.
First cab off the rank was Elodie. I decided to make her this dress (Simplicity 5695) and make it size 2. Only trouble was that I couldn’t find the ruffle piece for the pattern so I used a ruffle from another pattern that was bigger. Anyway the whole dress turned out to be a big size 3 so we moved it on to Tillie. She was pretty happy about that and that’s the great thing about having 5 kids! Something will always fit someone in the house.
and like all girls, Tillie needed to test out it’s ‘twirlability’. Happy to report it passed the test. She wore this dress 2 days in a row and wanted to wear it to bed. We’ve agreed to make another one in a different colour and I got it in the washing machine as fast as I could! By the way and because I know you’ll ask the fabric is Lecien Colour Basics.
I then pulled out a modkid pattern that I had been selling at markets. Keira picked out some crazy fruit fabric and I then put it back and picked out a few fabrics I thought would work a bit better. I have to say that modkid patterns are fabulous.
Super easy to follow instructions, she leaves nothing to chance and you don’t have to wing your way through the pattern the way I often find I have to when instructions aren’t clear or the designer has used a round about way of doing something.
The dress came together easily and fairly quickly – except that when you have a baby on you or near you it’s not as quick. I got a little bit unstuck with my overlocker. I always use my overlocker for seams and especially when you’ve ruffled/gathered something, you have threads going everywhere and the overlocker trims them all away and you get a nice neat edge. I love using it when I do my gathered skirts. Only thing is that this is a curved skirt and I was moving too fast – I finished up with the overlocker, inspected my work only to discover I’d sewn over some of the skirt at the back. I very carefully unpicked the stitches but my worst fears came true – the cutting knife had cut right through the back and left a big hole. Bummer. That was not the word I used but you get the picture.
Thankfully I made my boo boo on the back piece of the apron. So I simply cut off that back piece and when I assembled the dress I just sandwiched the front apron piece inbetween my skirt front and back pieces and sewed the seams together. Ta da. You’d never know. And next time I’ll flick back the cutting knife!
Now this is not a pretty stylised photo of her wearing the dress because I was interrupting her playtime!!! This is the size 6 in the pattern and fits her perfectly. She loves the dress, she’d prefer it not to be in pink, but she loves it. The spotty fabric is Lecien Colour Basics and the cherry blossom fabric is Kate Spain Good Fortune. The stripy fabric was from the quilting section at Spotlight, a few years back.
Now to make a dress for Miss elodie and I’ll be happy.
