Christmas Dresses 2011

So if you're my friend on Facebook, you probably saw my post about finishing up the girls' Christmas dresses the day before we left for Utah.  I was SO excited to finally be done with all my Christmas sewing, plus they turned out even better than I expected.  Truth be told, they'd been "finished" before, but didn't quite... um... work.  I mean, yes, the girls could wear them, but they had really wonky waistlines, and were just kind of ugly.  Well, not anymore.  I'm pretty excited about how they came out.

This is the only picture I have of all three dresses together.  I had to steal it from my mom.

Yeah, I know.  Lately, my girls seem to refuse to want to be all together for pictures.  Either that, or we're in too big of a hurry to get to church.  Something like that.

Now for a little more detail--

Cailin's dress:

(Yeah, she fell on our stairs and scraped up her nose. Poor girl.)

White satin-y bodice, green diamond pin tucked fabric skirt.  I fell in love with the green fabric before I'd figured out how exactly I wanted the dress to look, but this is what I came up with.

Cailin's is the only dress without a sash.  I'm not sure exactly why I didn't put one on hers, but I really like the way it came out anyway.  The little row of topstitching above the gathering just pulled it off for me.  Also, it really does fit her better than this picture portrays--the bodice doesn't actually drown her, I swear.

Her dress also ended up with buttons in the back, as I didn't make it with a stretch velvet like the other two.  Yeah, I did buttonholes without a buttonholer.  You may now tell me that I am awesome.  Thank you.  :)

Now for the other two dresses... Yeah, these pictures are even worse.  Why can't my kids stand still?  Crazy girls.  At least they like each other, right?

You can see the sashes here:

All I said was stop touching each other and hold still.  They gave me this.  I can't stop laughing every time I look at this photo.  They're posing exactly the same!  And I love Janey's face.  Hahaha.

And here, we finally have, after a rousing round of "Put your hands on your head.  Put your hands on your hair.  Put your hands on your stomach.  Put your hands to your sides." (*click*)  

Oh silly girls.  

Anyway, like I said before, stretch velvet on the tops, then some specialty apparel fabric on the bottoms.  They have sashes, and I really like how they pulled the dresses together--you'll just have to believe me when I say they didn't work before I put them on.  I also actually really like how the necklines came out--they're sort of a half-turtleneck.  I was afraid that they wouldn't stretch enough to get their heads through, but since I used my serger, which allows for a little more stretch, they worked out just fine.  Yay.  :)

So there they are, the Christmas dresses of 2011.  I love 'em, and I'm glad they're done.  Ha.

4/5

4/5 of the dresses in a blurry picture that makes me look super happy (seriously, there are NO happy pictures of me during the wedding festivities... I had no idea I had an angry face all the time!)... but hey, you can see them in action! I'm so happy with how the dresses came out--I'll definitely be making more clothes in the future. But probably not yellow. Or circular. For at least a few days. :)



And in case you were wondering, I ended up hand-finishing the sleeves (while watching Arrested Development, excellent use of time, if you ask me), and I put embroidery-floss hand-crocheted belt loops on there to hold the sashes in place. Both worked out great, I'd say.

Would anyone be interested in tutorials of any of these things I'm making these days? I feel like I'm finally at a point where I might have something to show--lined zippers, fully lined dresses, hand-crocheted belt loops (felt hand puppets, whatever else I've made)... anything? I don't want to take the time to make a tutorial if it won't help anyone, but if you're interested, speak up please! I know everything I've learned has come from the internet/my own head and trial by error, so I'd be happy to share what I've figured out, if you want it. Let me know.

Flower Girl Dresses

So a few weeks ago, my soon-to-be sister-in-law (holy hyphens!) asked me if I'd consider making flower girl dresses for my girls and their two cousins. I, of course, jumped at the chance, as I love having an excuse to buy fabric and think out ideas for how to make something look nicer. I was concerned, though, as most of my projects turn out... iffy. But, I put together a list of cute ideas, most with tutorials, so I figured I'd be safe. Of course, she chose the one dress on the list that I didn't have a tutorial for, but I decided to go for it anyway, and try to recreate the dress (with a few alterations, as the bride requested (and I gladly obliged to)). And so, 2.5 dresses later, I present you with my first official J. Crew knock-off/flower girl dress:

(the front) and then the back (notice the invisible zipper, yeah, I'm kind of awesome like that):

Oh, and see that little bit of gingham peeking through there?

well, turns out I'm slightly crazy, and decided to make the dress basically reversible. It was the only way I could figure out to get the layers just right, and to keep the bodice beautiful inside with no exposed seams (some of us aren't so lucky as to have a serger).

The only issue with a zipper in a reversible dress is that it's not so invisible on the inside... but I'm ok with that. I love the gingham so much!

The original dress looked like this:

I still need to finish the sleeves. I can't decide if I should just roll them under and top stitch them, or use white bias tape (the yellows are slightly different shades, so I don't want to put the yellow on the inside dress... if that makes any sense at all), or do a handstitched invisible stitch to close them off. And I need to add a sash, just need to check with the bride on whether she wants them to tie in the front or the back. Maybe I'll somehow just do loops, so it can be moved from front to back anyway... hmmm. Not sure yet.

Anyway, I'm pretty darn excited about how they're turning out. 1 down, 4 more to go. The first one is always the hardest and longest to figure out, right? Right. Hopefully someday I'll have better pictures in real light with a girl inside the dress, but for today--I'm too excited not to share. :)

Raise your hand if you love yellow circle-skirt dresses (raises hand crazily)!! After this, though, I don't think I'll be working with yellow for at least a little while. Seriously.

KCWC Day 2

Last one of these, I promise.


Well, maybe. What can I say? The girls and I really like this dress. When Janey saw Breanne's pink dress, she immediately asked "Mom, did you make me one, too?" I hadn't planned on it, but who can say no to this face?


I don't remember when or where I picked up this fabric, but I love it. I've been trying to decide on a project for it for months, but couldn't convince the girls to let me use it on anything, until today, when Janey picked it out of my stash for her dress.




The girls really wanted their pictures taken together--I love how good of friends they are, at least half of the time.


They decided that twirling was an excellent way to show off the dresses. I agreed, mostly because I wanted to show you the difference a circle skirt makes, compared to a generous tube dress. Even though there's a ton of give in the tube dress (the fabric is 45" wide, even though the girls are only 20 inches in the waist), it will never twirl up, because of the cut. Hence the reason I (and all of my girls) love circle skirts. It was funny, I didn't even say anything about it, and Janey said "Hey, Mom! My dress doesn't come up like Breanne's!" I didn't really expect her to notice, but she certainly did.


Oh well, she still loves it. And so do I. Also, I love this last photo. Everyone twirl! Cailin thought it was awesome. Funny girls.

Another Dress

So have I mentioned that Breanne is growing right up? I love that she's able to do more (she LOVES riding her bike (still with training wheels, but she's getting so much better!), she's reading basic books by herself, sounding out the words, and yesterday she perfectly rolled out all 13 pieces of naan we made--she's always asking how she can help--I need to be better at figuring out how to have her help), and while she can still be incredibly frustrating to me (she is amazingly good at ignoring me, and everything and everyone else around her), I'm trying to figure out better ways to utilize both of our energies. She's a good kid, I just need more patience.



Anyway, not only is she growing up mentally, but also physically. I swear, she has outgrown all of her dresses but two, and one of those is for an upcoming wedding, so she can't wear it yet. So... for KCWC I'm focusing on making her some new skirts (see below), and new dresses. Last week we had a sewing group, and I couldn't help but start early, and whip up another dress, similar to her Easter dress, but a little simpler (mostly).



It's simpler because it's just a basic tube dress, including the skirt, where the Easter dress was a circle skirt (I like the circle skirt look better, but it takes a lot more fabric, and thinking, and patience. And pressing and hemming. So this is better :)), but it is more complex because I made the lined pockets. It was my first attempt at pockets, and (like everything I make) they're not perfect, but I like the little extra they add to the dress.


One thing I'm realizing as I make more of these dresses is that I need to find a better way to keep them up on Breanne. She's getting so tall that the elastic thread gathers over her shoulders aren't tight enough to hold the weight of the dress up very well. I'm constantly having to tell her to pull it up in the front, and the back dips down nearly to her shoulder blades. I'm wondering if using plain elastic in a casing would be better? Or maybe just doing a different kind of sleeve altogether for her? I'm going to keep thinking about it, I'm sure the next dress will be different. :)

Easter Dresses in Action

Alright, back by popular demand are the Easter dresses, in action. You'll notice (this is so funny to me) that Breanne is actually the only one wearing a sash in these pictures--everyone started out with one, but I didn't have enough time to measure and cut and *sew on* anyone's sashes, so they were just tied around them like a belt. Of course this meant they were falling off everywhere, so Janey's and Cailin's ended up in my bag. Breanne was the only one who kept hers on all day. And she was the one who chose the satin ribbon (not as thick or bright a white as the grosgrain, but I ran out... sashes are LONG!). Sigh. :)

I love how the dresses turned out, and I love even more how much the girls liked them. Breanne was begging to wear hers for the two days it was finished before Easter, and couldn't wait to put it on on Sunday. I love reactions like that. :)

And now, for your viewing pleasure, I give you a video clip... so you can see how Cailin pretty much destroyed her dress (not really, it's in the wash and doing fine, but it sure looked bad after this). It was all my fault, really, since she didn't want to come outside and take pictures after church (she desperately needed a nap). I may or may not have told the girls to bribe her with her Easter basket of treats. That girl loves her some treats. Maybe someday I'll be able to just get pictures of them all smiling and happy... but for now, I'll take what I can get (and do it in video so you can see that they're actually happy). :)

Easter Dresses

Now this is why I sew. I love, love LOVE when a project in my head actually comes out looking like I want it to. I'm not sure I've ever made something I like so much. So... one down, two more (partially done) to go!

Close-up of the fabric:

It's hard to see it not in real life, but the shirring caused the embroidered flowers to gather up as tight little puffy flowers... love:

There is some debate about whether or not to add the ribbon (Breanne doesn't really want it), but I think it looks better with it. What do you think?

To give credit where credit is due--I based this dress off of images of Made's Summer Vacation Dress, with a lot of help on the sleeves from my wonderful friend e. over at pinksuedeshoe (this is almost the same as her Turtle Dress). I love the look of the shirred bodice, and it's so easy to do! I changed it up from both of those, though, with my own addition of a circle skirt. I love me some circle skirts. Minus the hem, but that's a different story. :)

Repurposing Take 2

Today, I attempted a dress for Janey. I found an adorable white with tiny yellow polkadots shirt that I really wanted for myself, but there was nothing even similar in my size, nor do I actually *need* another shirt. So Janey gets it. Having learned from Breanne's dress, this time I cut off the "skirt" part of the dress first, and left it full. I cut out the top (in the fashion of Made's 90 Minute Shirt), using the original neckline again. The pattern on the fabric is SO light, so I decided I might need a little more contrast in it. I found an old, stretched out yellow t-shirt of mine, and cut a strip out to put in the middle of the top and bottom of Janey's dress. The last step was sleeves, which I was able to cut out of the extra scraps leftover from the top of the shirt. After I pieced it all together, I came out with this:




Janey really likes it, and insisted on wearing it all evening. Once again, though, it's just so-so. But better than Breanne's, I think. Progress. :) I want to take the yellow strip in, make it about 1, maybe 1.5" across instead of the 2.5" it is now. And while I do that, hopefully I can fix some of the gathering. This is really my first experience in sewing with knits, and it's definitely been a challenge. Maybe someday I'll sew with a pattern, and get things that actually come out looking nice... but first I'll have to learn how to do that. :/

In the meantime, Breanne loves her new dress, too... but mostly just likes to make crazy faces at the camera:

T-shirt to Dress Refashion

Yep, that's right, I'm jumping on the repurposing boat. And I'm excited about it. :)

In case you haven't heard, Shade is going out of business. So naturally, I had to go to their liquidation sale here by me, and get a few things for myself. While I was there, though, I noticed that all of their extra large clothing was marked down to $5. Now, that's not an *amazing* deal by my standards, however, for nice, new clothing for the girls (a $5 comfy dress? yes please!), I figured I could spend that much. So, here is my first project using one of the shirts.

I wanted to make Breanne a dress out of this sea-green-ish fabric. I ended up cutting the original sleeves off the shirt, chopping the shirt up into the size of dress I wanted, and re-sewing it all back together.


I added the shirring for a little detail, but I'm not totally sold on it--I think the dress either still needs something else, or needs to be a little bit shorter (maybe a drop waist? I wish I'd thought to do something different with the waist before I chopped it all off and made it skinnier, if that makes sense to any of you). I can't decide what it is, though. I still think it came out pretty nicely:



and Breanne insisted on wearing it all nice tonight (hence the chocolate milk stain down the front... good thing I'm taking pics with my phone so you don't notice it so much... :)), but I didn't think to get any pics until after she went to bed. Maybe next time, since she seems to like it enough to wear it many times.