back from the wedding - the PINK reveal

The dress was done and I was very tempted to post it here when I finished it, but, on the off chance that my sister remembers this blog, I couldn't post the final pictures as it was meant as a surprise for her. Although the dress is not perfect by any means, I do consider it my masterpiece in sewing so far.

I was all set to chose the turquoise sash, had it cut and everything and then my husband said 'You know my Giggles, if you can't wear a pink sash with pink ribbons and rhinestones when you are 5, when can you wear it' ... and he was right ... she loves pink and everything that glitters and sparkles ... she chose the fabric and the embellishments ... her face lit up when she saw the sash being worked on ... needless to say we used the pink sash and it was her 'favouritest dress ever'.

 

I ended up taking 3 inches of the length of the bodice and love the end result. Yes, the sides seems don't really line up anymore, but they are covered by the sash so no one will know.

I finished it off with a layered hem that shows the lining as well giving it a bit of contrast. The petticoat goes well with it I though, but it is not necessary. On the day there was some comparison with the other flower girl and although butterflies (on the dress of the other flower girl) are a favourite in our house as well, the pink dress won hands down.

I wore the Dragonfly Dress and I was glad I made it larger, because I spend the 3 weeks before the wedding in Germany eating my weight in cake and ice cream without having to worry whether the dress will fit :-)

As we come to the end of the pink journey and can't help feeling a little sad. The fabric was a joy to sew with. I think all this pink just made me happy. Perhaps I should be looking into making something pink for myself. Whilst it is not my colour (much like yellow perhaps) it would cheer me up every time I wear it and I think every woman needs a few clothes like that :-)

the pink odyssey continues

I finished the bodice and the skirt section ... decided to line both instead of the facings ... chose to gather the skirt section rather then pleating it ... had the girl try it on ... and ... found a problem ... sigh

The bodice is too long, substantially too long, like 2 or 2.5 inches too long, too long to ignore too long. It looks too much like a dirndl and since the wedding is in Germany, I really want to avoid that comparison. I can't unpick it, because I have already trimmed the seam and with the gathering I would have to redo the lot, so I think I will just it in and sew it to the skirt section. It does look that long on the pattern envelope actually, but somehow it didn't look that long in the muslin, but that was without the skirt section weighing it down. Never mind, once the lining is sewn in place nobody will know :-)

Also I did the sash. My daughter picked the trims and I am now having second thoughts about the sash. It's over the top, she loves it, but I am thinking that aside from the 'overthetopness' it is not wide enough. I think it should be double the width. I could add a couple of layers of the pink lawn behind it and widen it that way, but that might be too much bulk.

Also I am questioning the colour choice. Maybe instead of the pale pink I should go for more contrast, like this turquoise linen remnant in my stash.

Maybe instead of attaching a sash permanently I should just hand stitch it on at the very end ... hmm, lots of food for thought.

pink, glorious pink - Part 1

In order to placate my daughter for god-only-knows-what about 3 weeks ago I took her to Spotlight and said she could pick out some fabrics for a dress to wear to my sisters wedding. She went straight to the costume section and brought back some fairy-tale princess dress in white polyester with the words 'Look Mummy, isn't this pretty? And you don't have to sew a thing'  .... hmm, not the idea that I was going for, but we eventually had a look at patterns for princess dresses and some fabric. She 'settled' for this Lisette sateen.

We hadn't found a pattern yet, so I bought 1.5 meters in the hope that it would be enough. A week later we finally agreed on Burda 9696.

Now, having never worked with actual paper Burda patterns, I didn't know what to expect. I was frustrated to no end at the store that the envelope back did not have a clarification for the sizes, neither did the instruction sheet inside. It said sizes 2-7 on the envelope, but no measurements. Later I found the sizes printed on the onion paper - by the time you unfold the onion paper you should already know which size you are going for.. Since my daughter is 5, but small for her age, I thought it would be safe to go with it. Well, turns out she is actually a 7-8 for Burda patterns. Also this pattern has very little in terms of ease. It was doubly annoying, because the pattern she really liked started from a size 8 and I thought it would be miles to big. It also meant that my fabric was going to stretched to the max, because a size 7 requires more then a size 5, not a lot, but some.

I also picked up some plain pink cotton lawn as contrast and for the petticoat some tulle. All in all I had 4.5 meters of fabric, it seemed plenty. However, once I started cutting things, I had to go back and get a further 2 meters of the pink lawn and I used some half a meter of cotton broadcloth I had in my stash. So all together this dress consumed 7 meters of fabric and only half a meter came from my stash ... sigh ... and it's not finished yet.

On the plus side I have 'graduated' from 'really easy' and 'easy' patterns to 'middle/average'. Yeay me ...

I started with the petticoat  and she loves it ...

There are French seams and the tulle gathering is completely enclosed by fabric as to not irritate her sensitive little legs ... please take note that she can put up with all sort of itches and scratches from the aforementioned polyester costumes (even though we didn't buy that one, we do own a great many of them), but other clothes irritate her to no end. I blame her father, he never liked wearing clothes - or shoes, in fact, he didn't wear shoes really until he went to high school (can only happen in North Queensland, everywhere else in the world you'd suffer from frostbite) - and we only just managed to get her to the point that she will wear at least undies when interacting with other people :-)

Onwards with the dress now ...