Successful shirred sundress
Way back in February I had a fairly poor attempt at shirring a pillowcase dress using shirring elastic. I’ve finally given it another try and this time I’ve figured out how to do it properly!
This is a op-shopped pillowcase. There was only one seam, so I rotated it to the centre back of the dress. After chopping about seven inches from the closed end of the pillowcase I made four narrow straps. The skirt was already hemmed because it was the open end of the pillowcase. I made a narrow hem around the top of the pillowcase where I’d chopped some off, then got out the shirring elastic.
I wound the shirring elastic onto the bobbin by hand without stretching it, then did some test sewing on the leftover piece of pillowcase I’d cut off earlier. For my machine I needed to lengthen the stitch length to 4 and loosen the bobbin tension significantly to get a satisfactory gather and stretch. I did 13 rows of shirring one centimetre apart, then tried it on Clare and sewed the straps into place.
She happily danced for the camera, of course! This morning it was to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker – we’re going to see the ballet next month so the music is on high rotation in our house.
Whenever Stella hears music from the Nutcracker, she says “Barbie” (we have the Barbie and the Nutcracker DVD on high rotation too). Poor Tchaikovsky has been ousted by a plastic doll.
It’s perfectly gorgeous Lara (as is your twirling girl). I have a few lovely pillowcases and some recently-purchased shirring elastic, now I just need to find some little girls! You give me hope, I’ll try to be a good girl and test-run on something first like you did.
A fantastic dress and I feel for you…we have the nutcraacker too…Barbie that is punishing x
Great idea to use a pillowcase. It looks brilliant.
Snap! I’ve been shirring everything in sight this week. What a pretty pillowcase, Clare looks lovely in her new dress.
How lovely!
Isn’t shirring fun once you get the hang of it! I’m working on a shirred dress for me this week 🙂
GREAT shirring Lara, you’ve turned the humble pillowcase into a great dress
Wow. You are so very, very clever.
What a brilliant transformation. That pillowcase fabric is so lovely and your girl looks so sweet doing her ballet twirling….
I’m addicted to making these at the moment. They are so easy and look so pretty.
Well done! That is one pretty refashioning job you’ve achieved!
Adorable! The dress and your daughter.
i just stumbled on yr blog, after reading this post i’m stuck on you already! great job with the pillowcase, am gonna go read up on shirring this very moment!
So pretty! I’d love to give this a go myself, I have two little girls who’d love it.
LOVE the dress. I did similar with thrifted fabric a couple of weeks ago and everything worked out fine and then yesterday I tried and couldn’t for the life of me get it to work – grrrrr! So today the pillowcase became a pair of darling little summer shorts! Will have another go using your method soon. x
What a gorgeous dress, and little lady.