Strawberry sundress - New Look 6796

I've been on a complete sewing spree this summer. I feel like I've made several evolutionary leaps forwards. I've tackled zips, bias binding tape, gathers. I've even drafted my own patterns. A year ago I could barely sew in a straight line let alone breath at the same time. I still struggle big time with understanding patterns and I am a little intimidated by my sewing machine - okay quite a lot. But I am getting more and more ambitious about what I tackle.

This super cute sundress is a New Look pattern. I went for view A but without the ruffle along the bottom - too fussy. The fabric was from my perennial favourite, fabricland. I love that nothing costs much more than £3 a metre. I'm too scared to cut into anything more pricey! I opted for age 2 width and age 3 length and like the other New Look pattern I tried a few months back, the fit was just right.

I was so happy with the finished garment but this dress threw quite a few curve balls at me. For starters my sewing machine was playing up and some of my stitches were loopy and loose especially down the side seams. I kept rethreading and checking in a very OCD way that my needle was up and the presser foot raised. I tried adjusting various dials but couldn't get a neat stitch. I think either the cotton thread was at fault. It was Coats but seemed slightly 'hairy'. Maybe it was a dud reel. Or possibly I threw everything out of kilter when I forced a zip under the wrong presser foot.

Also I was not anticipating having to make my own bias binding tape - eek! Or add gathers. This pattern was supposed to be easy! I read a couple of Dana tutorials here and here and did a pretty decent job of both. In fact I can see there is something quite addictive about making bias tape. I was slightly thrown by the different shape and size of the 'bib' in the illustrations compared to the pattern pieces. They seemed completely different and I wasn't quite sure what I was aiming for. I'd love to see other people's take on this dress.

I would make this dress again. I'm quite keen to have a go at view B which uses bias binding for the straps as well as neatening off the armholes. But before I do, I really need to make something for my ocean-mad little boy. That's a toy shark he's clutching. He has already picked out some fabulously jazzy underwater sealife fabric with strict instructions that I am to make a pair of shorts for him.

Charlotte's Web dress - Butterick B4718

The original plan was to make this Butterick dress for little P's birthday back in June. I had this cute blue and white gingham fabric with pink roses, which I thought would work perfectly with dress C but with the shorter length of dresses A and B.

 

I was toying with the idea of a Charlotte’s Web themed birthday party and I thought little P would make a great Dakota Fanning in her gingham dress. Okay I know the two dresses are totally different. It was more an inspired by than an actual copy of the dress below.

 

As a kid I longed for a proper big girl dress with a skirt that spun out when I twirled around and a waist around my middle and not up about my earholes. As far as I know little P doesn’t share this dress dream. But if there is a decent dose of pink thrown in, it’s all good in her book.

 

Back to the birthday - I had a mental picture of the garden full of hay bales, a petting zoo with piglets, spider's web-shaped climbing ropes hanging from the trees. It would have been amazing but in the end I didn't get the dress finished in time and the only nod to Charlotte was the pig-shaped cake. We all had a great time even without the extra Charlotte paraphernalia!

 

The reason the dress was only half cut out on the eve of her birthday was I ran out of fabric. I made a silly mistake early on and misread the layout instructions. I hadn’t understood that a piece which is shown half dotted half plain in the layout is actually one piece not two and you are supposed to cut it out last of all. Well I snipped it in two and was suddenly missing half my bodice.

There wasn't time to get more fabric - in fact the shop had completely run out - so I put the whole project to one side. When I came back to it recently, I realised if I lined it in a contrasting fabric and turned one of my back bodice pieces into a front piece it might just be salvageable. Luckily I'd cut out the back as one piece not two. I already had a bubblegum pink zip to go with the roses so I picked out a matching pink lining fabric. I really liked the little peek of pink at the neckline and armholes. In fact I was really proud of how the bodice turned out. Everything lined up and looked really neat.

The zip was more troublesome. I couldn't make sense of the instructions and wasn't even sure what sort of zip I was aiming for. After a fair amount of pinning and experimenting I figured out how to attach the zip to the outer fabric. I then sewed as close as I could to the zip teeth with my regular presser foot. It worked fine but I seem to have sent the thread tension out of whack ever since!

I was completely bamboozled about how to attach the lining fabric to the zip and hide the raw edges. I had already sewn up the side seams and attached the bodice to the skirt so there was no way of turning the fabric inside out. I really didn't want any raw edges along the zip so hand sewed the zip to the lining inside which looked okay. 

Sometimes dressmaking feels like figuring out a rubix cube. I think next time I would attach the zip to the bodice before sewing on the skirt so I could machine the inside. I would also tuck away all those raw edges where the skirt joins the top. Maybe I'd have to hand stitch all the way around the waist?

The finished dress looked great but initially the fit was terrible. I used age two sizing for the width and age three for the length as that matched little P’s measurements most closely. The length was fine but it was ridiculously large around the body. Rather than unpick the zip - I couldn’t face it - I snipped it out and bought a new one. It was only 40p. Then I took the whole thing in by a couple of inches around the back. I thought it might throw the armholes out of kilter but it worked just fine.

And here it is. It's pretty. It's comfy. It has a satisfyingly swirly skirt. It's great for a party or just playing out in.

She loves it! I love it and would definitely give this pattern another go.

Pattern review - New Look 6578

This is the first piece of clothing I have ever made from a bought pattern. I absolutely love it but I admit I was terrified! Irrationally so as surely having all pieces provided along with a set of instructions has to be simpler than the hit and miss guesswork I have been using up to now. There is something slightly - okay incredibly intimidating about using a pattern. It feels like proper grown up serious sewing.

The pattern, New Look 6578, is classed as easy but I spent weeks staring at the instructions barely able to make head nor tail of them. I even read them in Spanish but was still completely bamboozled.

Eventually I gathered my courage, measured up my girl and started cutting out – a lovely brown and white Michael Miller fabric with a voile design of children playing. I was going through a heap of different fabrics with her mentally crossing my fingers she wouldn’t choose something too pink and princessy and amazingly she picked the brown. Little P is a tall slim 2 and half year old so I went for the size 2 pattern but added the length of the size 3. Phewee. So far so good.

I had four pieces for my a-line dress – a front, back, front facing and back facing. I finally figured out that facing meant a sort of lining in the same fabric, in this case around the armholes and neck line. I was still struggling with the instructions, so I decided to dump them and turn to good old google instead.

It threw up this great little video tutorial for a similar a-line dress. The construction was slightly different with a back fastening instead of over shoulder fastenings but it helped me figure out what I was aiming for. Mainly it gave me confidence to just crack on and stop worrying about everything being perfect. The lady in the clip effortlessly slings the thing together. I followed her good advice to pin and iron every step of the way and it definitely helped the finish. 

But even after all my careful ironing the facing kept flipping up under the arms, so I ran a few stitches below and parallel to the armholes to keep it in place. I skipped the interfacing so maybe that would have helped. My way worked fine.

I tried a couple of new tricks. In the absence of a serger, I zigzag stitched the raw edge of the facing. It wasn’t perfect but it was okay. And for some mysterious reason I decided to attempt a French seam down the side seams. It was pretty easy and looked lovely.

And of course there were buttonholes to contend with. I nearly bottled out and used press studs. I didn’t have the patience to figure out how to machine sew them so I hand sewed. Here I am looking very serious stitching away on holiday.

They were a long long way from perfect but they work and the beautiful pearly pink vintage buttons from love buttons disguise my poor sewing.

The finished dress is gorgeous. Once I was over my initial confusion it was pretty straight forwards. The fit is lovely but there is zero growing room. Next time I would use less generous seam allowances and add an inch or two to the length. I also realised after the event that I had got my buttons and buttonholes the wrong way round. Oops.

I would definitely make this dress again now I kind of know what I am doing. I have my eye on a lovely blue and white ikat print...