Shirred Dress

I've had this fabric for a while, just a spotlight number, really light.

Yesterday I turned it into a shirred dress for me, after which I am not sure about the stripes and colour, so it can be a 'House Christmas Dress' I think!

There was alot of shirring going on and wider than normal straps for me, it is very comfortable and cool.

I'll make a black one next, not so home madey looking hopefully.

Shirred Summer Top

Cute little girl wearing her new Summer top, hopefully one of many more to come...

This fabric comes from an old pillowcase that was amongst my 'score' yesterday.

I used my rotary cutter to open up the pillowcase to form one big rectangle, trimmed off about 8 inches from one end to use as the straps then hemmed the top and bottom, sewed up the one and only side seam and shirred 4 rows at the top, made up the straps and sewed them on! I use my iron to steam up the shirring and make it shrink up nicely rather than pull up the elastic and risk breaking it. I also individually tie off each line of shirring in knots, both the cotton threads on the front and the elastic threads on the back, then trim the ends and stitch down over these knots and through the side seam so its not that visible but still secure.

One standard size pillowcase seems to make the perfect size top for Lilly who is 6 years old but wears size 8 to 10 clothes.

So this is what I've been doing all weekend...well not all weekend, but a good chunk of it! I just love the way these have turned out. It's the Pink Fig Lily Dress/Top yet again. We've also had a wild 15m plastic waterslide happening as well with a whole bottle of detergent gone! You can check out these dresses closer in my shop, where they are listed for sale! Click on the link to the right in the side bar to get there!

Pink Cherry Dress

How cute is this dress!Finally my Sandi Henderson Farmer's Market fabric order arrived from the USA, all 8 yards of it! It is all just so lovely, it was so hard to choose which fabric for which bit!

I have enough to make quite a few things.

First up was this PinkFig Lily Dress for Lilly. I cut the size 7 pattern a bit bigger, so I guess this dress is now an 8, it is quite a bit bigger than the first one I did in a 7. I have perfected my shirring, well I'm quicker at it now anyway. Also, instead of tying off the cotton good side threads in knots at the end of each line of shirring, I use a needle to sew each thread back through the fabric to the wrong side then knot it off there, so you can't see the start and finish of each line of shirring from the right side...make sense??!! It adds an extra step but is much neater. The pattern includes a sash which is not really needed to wear the dress, just a way of adding an extra bit of interest and using up some gorgeous material
...below is a pic without the sash...

Little Spanish Girl

Lill had to go dressed as 'something' from another country, there were about 6 countries to choose from. I called my friend Jen who is great at this stuff and read her the note. She paused for 5 seconds then said, ok, so you choose Spain, you get a white peasant top and a twirly skirt, put some flowers in her hair and give her some castonets (however that is spelt!) So that's what we did.

I made the white top with broderie using the Pinkfig Lily top pattern and the skirt I thought would be simple...can you believe there are hardly any flamenco or circle skirt patterns out there! I ended up at Spotlight and got a rock n roll skirt pattern from Simplicity. I chose a bright red material with yellow flowers, this skirt used 2 metres! It is a complete circle with a waistband, concealed zip and fastener on the side. It was a very good twirlable skirt indeed! I made a yellow triangle skarf to wrap around her waist. We put red roses in her hair and she was set. I don't know how Spanish this all is, but she certainly looked very cute and it gave me a very good excuse to sew.

PinkFig Lily Top

I have lots of good news! My sewing machine and overlocker went in for a service and came back today like brand new again, so exciting, the overlocker had been 'broken' for a long while and now its like a dream to sew stuff!

Yesterday my Kelani order arrived, super quick I might add and very nicely packaged. Amongst the goodies was my first Pink Fig pattern- The Lily Top. So I made it using stash fabric in case it didn't turn out, but luckily it did! I am not sure that Lilly will actually get to wear this dress, not for the bright yellow colour (she will think its the most beautiful coloured dress in the whole wide world knowing her) but for the size. I cut and made the largest size, a 7 and I think its going to be a tight squeeze. Somehow I should be able to make the next one bigger as the pieces were all very very simple as was the dress to make really. There is shirring around the neckline, the sleeves and the chest, 4 rows for each section and the pattern tells you to steam the elastic to make it pucker up even more which works a treat! Chelsea from Pink Fig has a great shirring tutorial here. I don't think it really needs the sash with the shirring around the chest but I guess it adds an extra contrast. I can't wait to make it in the Farmers Market fabrics I've got coming.

Round Tablecloth Dress

This turned out super cute! I found this round tablecloth somewhere or other, soaked it in nappysan and turned it into a Spring twirly shirred dress. Little Miss loves it. I cut a round hole in the exact middle, about 40cm diameter, probably could have been a smaller hole by the way. And then turned over a small hem and then did 4 lines of shirring, sewed on some ribbons for straps and thats it! If you get the cut hole in the exact middle of the circle then the hem of your dress (which was the original rolled edge hem on the tablecloth) will be fairly level. There is no side seams because it is a circle. Now I am on another tangent looking for more round tablecloths instead of making bags I've already got cut!

Shirred Top

My first go at shirring! I thought it would be a complete failure, but after a bit of research I had a shot at it and I think I did pretty well. This top was for Olivia and I also made a matching Amy Butler headband.