Day: 6 January 2012

children's clothing, sewing

“Adele” dress for Clare

Crafty Mamas has a number of downloadable pdf patterns available for sale.  The Violette Field Threads “Adele” dress is a recent addition to their range.  When I saw it I was sure that Clare would love it.

Violette Field Threads "Adele" dress

While the front is your usual t-shirt dress, the back has a bustle effect with four layers of frills.

Violette Field Threads "Adele" dress

I’m not usually a huge fan of downloadable patterns because despite the instant factor I dislike taping all the pattern pieces together. However this pattern was well designed so that you taped together the paper for each piece one at a time rather than have all the pieces printed interlocking on what eventually becomes one giant piece of paper. I hope that I’ve explained that properly!

Violette Field Threads "Adele" dress

The instructions were comprehensive and illustrated with photographs throughout, right from taping together the paper to the final stitches. However, I didn’t pay a huge amount of attention to them and just went my own way. I used my overlocker to roll hem the hemline and frills, did the top two frills single layered rather than double as per the instructions (due to fabric limitations) and used elastic to gather the sleeves in a similar way to the Alice top I made myself. I used a band to finish the neckline, sewing one shoulder seam first, applying the neckband, then sewing the other shoulder seam.  I used the twin needle to stitch it into place and give it a more finished look, and twin needle hemmed the sleeves as well.

Violette Field Threads "Adele" dress

Clare thought that having the frills on the back only was a little weird at first, but lots of fun. She’s enjoyed wearing it. Stella wants one as well, but with frills all the way around. The bustle effect appears to be a little too fashion forward for my four year old! The fabric is a cotton/lycra remnant from Rathdowne Fabrics (not yesterday! – I bought and made this last year), and size wise I made size 8 which was appropriate for my small about-to-turn-nine-year-old.

Violette Field Threads "Adele" dress

crochet

hexagon scarf

Quite a while ago I crocheted a Mamy bag.  It turned out that I crocheted many more hexagons than I needed for the bag.  The leftover hexes sat in a colourful pile for months and months and months, but when I was away with book group last year I sewed them together and turned them into a scarf.

hexagon scarf

It is quite difficult to photograph scarves effectively! I’m looking forward to wearing this one in winter – because as we know, I do like a bit of colour! And now the poor abandoned hexagons have become a useful accessory. Hopefully they’ll look better on me than on my chair.

hexagon scarf

Yesterday I had a lovely fabric shopping day out with some of my Sewjourn companions – there are accounts of the day over here and here! Extremely pleasant (and you’ll be impressed to discover that I was very mindful in my purchases).  And my clever and talented crocheting/quilting/dressmaking friend blogless Megan is blogless no longer – check out her new blog Indigo Midge!