Lauren's Flower Girl Dress

A couple of years ago a friend asked me to make a flower girl dress for her wedding.  I did a quick photoshop mock up of the style she wanted using a photo of a similar style in a similar fabric so that she would have an idea of what it would look like when finished.  The sash will be different, but the fabric is similar.  She really wanted the one shoulder look because that is what the bridesmaids are wearing.  I talked her into letting me put a thin strap on the other shoulder, because, let's face it, little girls are not built like big girls and I was afraid that it would gap.  I bought some black ruffle elastic for that little strap which I think will be super cute!

Just as I was about ready to start cutting the fabric for the dress, she informed me that she had postponed her wedding.  Thankfully I had not begun cutting into the fabric yet!  And in retrospect, even more glad that the company from which I ordered the fabric accidentally filled my order twice!  When I contacted them about it, they told me to keep the extra yardage.  There is plenty of this satin damask print for a bigger size dress.

My original plan for this dress was to modify an existing pattern, per my usual MO back in those days.  However, since taking the Pattern Workshop course, I have decided that I might get a better fit by drafting it myself.

So, that is what I did this weekend.  I drafted the bodice and made a muslin.  I have yet to try it on the little gal to see how it fits.  I'm hoping it fits well on the first go, but we will see.

I also started work on a little ruffled, tiered, half slip for her to wear under her dress to add some fullness.  I thought about building a crinoline into the dress.  I realized, after thinking about it for a while, that a half slip might be more useful to them because she can wear it with other dresses as well.

I have been trying a technique I have not tried before.  Making the ruffles on my serger.  After having broken two needles trying this method, I think I might have figured it out.  I'm not sure that I am crazy about doing the ruffles this way, to be honest.  The gathered edge looks a bit too messy for my taste.  It is, however, considerably faster than the traditional method of gathering that I usually use.  Maybe I'm just too much of a traditionalist because I know this isn't a new technique, it's just one that I have never explored.

So, what about you?  What projects have you been working on this weekend?  What new things are you learning or trying?

Pattern Workshop

I mentioned a couple of posts ago about Lauren Dahl's amazing course called Pattern Workshop. It is truly a remarkable experience!  You can read more about it on Lauren's Blog.

Last week in the course of just a few hours, I went from nothing but an idea in my head to this...

And from that to this....

This course has taught me so much about drafting a pattern on my computer from nothing but measurements.  This is something that I have wanted to learn how to do for a very long time, but information was scarce.  Like a well kept industry secret or something.  Now, I literally feel like I could just throw out all of the paper patterns from McCalls, and Butterick, and Simplicity that are just taking up space in my studio because I don't need them... I can do it myself and have exactly what I want!  No more tracing and cutting and spreading and dealing with huge pieces of paper and trying to keep my two cats from parking themselves in the middle of all of it. LOL.  

I highly recommend the course for anyone who is interested in pattern design!  

Pattern workshop

Hello all!  I feel like I have been away forever.  I finished the sew along posts a couple of weeks ago and scheduled them to post on the right day, so I haven't written a post in probably  2 weeks!

In the meantime I have been having a ton of fun with a new course I have been taking.

Have you heard of Lauren Dahl's Pattern Workshop?  It is fantastic!! I have learned so much already and I am only a little over halfway through the course!  It is all about how to use Adobe Illustrator to draft patterns right on your computer.  How to do all the illustrations, and diagrams and how to digitize hand drawn patterns.  It really is wonderful, and Lauren is awesome about taking the time to answer questions as needed.  I highly recommend you check it out if pattern drafting is something that you are interested in.  You won't be disappointed!

Making a PDF pattern was one of my goals for this year and I am moving right along with it!

Here is a sneak peek!  I still have a lot of work to do, but I'm getting there.

I have a lot more to share, but that will have to wait for a later post.

What are you working on?

It started with a sketch....

I know, I haven't blogged in ages. I always think I'm going to get back around to it and then time passes, and well... apparently it is 6 months later.  Just about the time I think I am going to quit altogether, I get a new idea that I want to share,  so here I am again, LOL. I wanted to share my process for making the pattern for a new dress.  I call it the "Anna" dress.  Soon to be a new addition to my website and Etsy shop.

This weekend I posted a few sketches over on my Facebook page.  Whenever I get an idea, if it is handy, I try and sketch it out.  I'd say that probably 90% of these never wind up becoming real garments.  Mostly because of time or money constraints, but also because I wind up tucking these little drawings away and I forget all about them until I run across them again.  Sometimes years later.  This weekend I decided that I would try and work through at least some of the sketches that I posted.  I wasn't sure where to start, so I just started with sketch #1.

I went through my pattern stash and decided to use this pattern as the base pattern for the bodice. 

I traced the pattern onto freezer paper.  I measured the length of the skirt piece from the pattern and extended the center line approximately the same distance.  From the side of the bodice I simply drew a 60* angled line the same length as I extended the center line.  I drew a right angle from each line in just an inch or so and then just eyeballed a gentle curve for the bottom of the skirt.  I traced the same curve onto the back pieces so that they would match. This gave me a simple A-line dress pattern.  The entire dress was composed of 6 pattern pieces.  One cut on the fold for the front, one piece that was cut mirror imaged for the back, a center pleated panel, which was just a big rectangle,  facings for the neck and a contrast trim piece for the front.  

Drafting the cap sleeves was the trickiest part.  It involved reading several tutorials and trying to take adult measurements and size them down to toddler size.  In the end it worked out, but I did have to kind of play with them a bit in order to get them looking like I wanted them.  I wound up dropping the sleeve opening to where the notch is on the pattern instead of where I drew the dot on the pattern.  It just looked more right when I sewed it together.  The center panel of the skirt was done by cutting a rectangular piece out from the center of the dress front piece.  I measured the pleated panel by deciding how many pleats of what size I wanted and then doing the calculations to decide how large to cut the piece.  

Construction of this part was a little unusual, but it worked just fine.  I reinforced the top and corners of the dress front piece with stay stitching.  I clipped in the edges the same amount as my seam  allowance.  I drew out and ironed my pleats into my insert panel and sewed the side seam allowances.  Then I zig zagged the top edge to the opening in the dress front piece with the raw edges butted up together.  It worked pretty well.  I then used a little bias tape on the inside to hide the seam and the contrast trim piece on the outside to hide the seam.  

The rest was pretty standard dress construction.  Zippered back, facings, etc.  I serged the edges of the side seams before sewing them.  When I got to the sleeve openings, I just ended my side seam at the notch, turned the edges of the sleeves in and topstitched them down.  

Voila! A new dress! I am hoping to get some "real" pictures of it and get it listed over at Etsy soon.

I am also linking up with Randi at I Have To Say for Show and Tell  Tuesday. 

So I Went to a Wedding Yesterday...

I went to a wedding yesterday.  A friend of ours and his lovely bride had a beautiful, yet simple wedding in their new home yesterday.  It was a lovely gathering of family and friends.  But the seamstress in me could not be contained. There was a little girl there who was wearing a fabulous little sundress.  It was such a simple design, but yet it was just pretty no matter what she was doing.  It had just the right amount of fullness and fluff to hang nice and be very feminine and yet casual at the same time.  I studied this dress the whole afternoon as the little one was running about and playing in the yard after the ceremony.  I simply HAD to figure out how to make one.  I'm kinda crazy that way. And, besides that, I have ALWAYS been a sucker for little girls in sundresses.  They are my favorite. :)

It was similar to this at the top, but it was much, much fuller and ruffled at the bottom.

So I came home and put my brain to work. In my horribly messy sewing room.

Approximately an hour later I came up with this.  It took a little calculating and going to the internet for formulas for figuring radius and circumferences and such.  I can never remember those. :)  

The design is based on a half circle pattern.  I realized that making it straight would not have allowed me the fullness that I was looking for.  I am hoping I got it right. It didn't look like it was a full circle.  

The plan is to make it out of these fabrics.  Aren't they awesome?!  I love the colors. 

 I also have some cherry themed fabrics that would be really cute in this design, too.  

This is definitely high priority on my project list.  :)

Feeling the need for a challenge

A while back I joined Craftsy.com.  I soon saw "The Bombshell Dress" class by Sew Retro and I really wanted to take it.  But alas, after finding out what sizes it comes in, I realized that it does not come in a big enough size for me.  :(  I was relishing the challenge of making something that was a more difficult pattern and more of a couture design.  I was hoping to learn some new skills that I could then turn around and use in my MCM sewing.  Might have to get a book or something to learn those things now.

Disappointed in finding that I am too large for this dress and frustrated at my own largeness, I went on a pattern shopping mission.  That too was frustrating.  I am just proportioned weird and it was hard to guess what size I really needed.  I came home empty handed.

To that end, I have decided that I really would like to make a duct tape mannequin of myself and try draping my own fabrics and designing something that might actually fit me right.  I have watched a few youtube videos on draping and it seems like it might be a fun challenge.  And well, if I lose some weight, it won't be hard to make another duct tape mannequin later on.  I think I have enough pattern altering skills, that if I am able to get a basic sloper of myself, then I think I could come up with some things that might actually work.

Flower girl dresses, episode 1.

As I mentioned before, my friend's sister has asked me to make two flower girl dresses for her upcoming wedding.  She wanted a one shoulder design.  That can be a little challenging when you are talking about making that in a 2T and a 3T.  I made the design call to have just a small strap on one side and a full shoulder on the other.  I was afraid that it would gap and not hang right if I just left it open.  Little girls are just not built like big girls, if you know what I mean.  Here is a photoshop edit of a similar dress to what I will be making.  The skirt will be a touch longer, and the sash will be different.  The fabric is nearly identical. It will be fully lined and include a built in crinoline.

Next step... drawing the patterns.  Stay tuned!

Something for Etsy, and the further adventures in pattern drafting...

I picked up 3 of these little bodysuits last summer on clearance and I just got around to figuring out what to do with one of them. I thought it turned out pretty cute. :) Nice quick little project for Etsy.

I started in on another outfit for Etsy today, too. I figured I'd better get geared up a little for spring. It also seems like things get listed so fast at Etsy that they get buried a bunch of pages down in a hurry. Something can go from being on the first page down about 50 pages in like 2 days. It's crazy!

The new outfit will be a "float" top and a pair of pants that are gathered and cuffed mid calf in a size 3t. The top is essentially a full circle gathered on to a high yoke and then has a ruffle around the hem. The fabric is wild and crazy, but that's what you all said you liked. ;) It is a bright, BIG, hot pink, red, yellow, green, white and black paisley and the pants are a sort of sqiggley hot pink and white stripe. I am fairly certain that my pattern modifications will be ok, but figuring out the full circle thing was kind of weird. Once I figured out a couple of things, then it started to make sense, and I think it will work ok. I just washed the fabric and I am waiting for it to dry, then I can iron it and start cutting out! Wish me luck! :)

The challenge....

Recreate this adorable outfit! How cute is this? I am in love with every aspect of it! The seller that has this on Etsy, however, wants $115.00 for it. A bit pricey. I want to make something similar for my niece, Claire for her birthday in October. The problem. I got no pattern. The solution??? Modify an existing pattern or draft my own using a sloper. Modifying a pattern is something I have done to a small degree in the past, but this will require a lot more than I have done before. I have never worked with slopers before, but I am considering it for this project. I checked a book out of the library the other day that gives me instructions as to how to make them, BUT, I don't have Claire here to measure, as she lives in Texas, and I am in Minnesota. I could maybe get Carrie (her mom) to do it for me, I don't know. I am relishing the chance to really draft my own pattern, something I have wanted to be able to do for years, but never had the guts to really try it, but I am scared that it won't turn out right, especially with no one to try it on and see how the fit is. I really need a child size dress form. Should I do it?