I made the mistake of letting Anna into my sewing room the other day whilst I was trying to trace some Burda patterns. I say mistake because she proceeded to pull fabrics from the stash for me to make into dresses for her, in the process messing up my newly folded fabric shelves. That child leaves a trail of destruction wherever she goes!
Our weather has finally turned cool although we're still having mostly gloriously sunny days (I so love autumn best) so I thought I would appease her wish for a new dress plus save myself an argument every morning when I try to convince her not to wear a lightweight summer dress to school and just make her a new winter dress. Enter a brushed cotton fabric in a vivid almost psychedelic floral print that I've had in my stash since 2007 and bought from an op shop according to a little swatch book I kept for a very short time:
I used New Look 6745, a now OOP pattern that I also picked up in an op shop. I made version D, the long sleeved version, although I left off the ruffle around the bottom out of sheer laziness. Of course after Anna spied the pattern she demanded a dress just like the little girl in the top picture with a ruffle around the bottom, so you may see another version of this dress again soon.
The pattern is super simple and surprisingly the sizing was spot on. I made a size 4 for Anna even though it was a bit bigger than her measurements, so that she could layer it over some undershirts for when it's really cold, and hopefully wear it next year too. It doesn't look too big on her now, although I'm not sure that height wise she'll be able to wear it as a dress next year.
The only change I made was to fully line the bodice in a bright pink cotton poplin instead of fiddling about with bias tape for the neckline. What I really like about this dress is that it buttons up at the back - Anna has an annoying habit of changing her outfit multiple times a day which means an enormous amount of washing for me to do, but she can't get those buttons un-done without help so chalk a minor win up for me!
Believe or not but I had those giant pink buttons in the stash - my next door neighbour who works as a pattern designer for a fashion manufacturer here in Sydney gave me a big bag of buttons last time she offloaded some of her stash to me and these were in there. Perfect colour for the dress and perfect size for her dad to do up too - he's all thumbs sometimes! Unfortunately the first one broke my button foot on my machine, so I had to sew all the rest on by hand.
And most important of all - the dress twirls just enough to please my little whirlwind:
Thank you all for your encouraging comments on the last post. I readily admit that I am quite hard on myself in terms of quality, but I do like my garments to look perfect and not at all home made. After 18 years of sewing I've moved beyond the stage of just being excited that I've made something that hasn't fallen apart to now being excited when something comes out perfectly executed. It's partly why I don't like sewing with knits so much - I feel like a newbie sewer all over again. It just goes to show that there's always something to learn, no matter how experienced or knowledgeable you are.
Speaking of which, I'm attending a workshop on using the overlocker this Saturday with my local group of the Australian Sewing Guild which I'm thoroughly looking forward to. Last month I attended the industry day with the guild and not only did I learn loads about interfacing and sewing but I also had such fun, mainly thanks to the ladies I was sitting with making jokes and giggling all day like naughty schoolgirls (yes I mean you Sharon, Alison and Renata!). Plus I won a lucky door prize and scored a few metre of some new fangled interfacing recently released by McCalls which will come in handy for the winter jacket I'm going to make shortly now that my sewing mojo has returned.