Friday, January 30, 2015

One Thimble magazine: Firefly Dress

I've been working on this project for a couple of weeks. In fact, this project has taken me longer to complete than any other project I've made, with the exception of the three sets of enormous curtains I made last year. I'm glad to finally be finished so I can gush about it!

This project ticks two boxes on my resewlution list:
- use fabric from my stash only
- give handmade gifts
And this wasn't on my list, but I want to try out patterns that I've never used before, instead of sticking to ones I've already used.



This dress is by Boo! Designs Patterns. Kristie is an Australian pattern designer and she has some amazing patterns for kids. I hope to get some more soon!

The dress features bodice ruffles, a huge sash, mitred neck binding, and a button down back. It is marked as an intermediate level pattern. At first I thought it was too hard for an intermediate sewer, but it isn't really. There are a million little steps, but each one is explained in great detail. The ruffles themselves took me about 2 hours- mostly because I wanted them to be perfect, so I took my time. 




There are also heaps of pieces. The bodice is made up of a front, side fronts, back, side backs, sash middle, sash, two ruffles, and neck binding. I did find the binding really tricky at first, but it was explained so well that it didn't take me long to figure out. 




Although this dress took ages to sew, it was a really pleasant project to make. I never complete a project on the day I start it- I like to do an hour here and there over the course of a week or two. Due to all the steps, it was easy to do one big step or a few small ones in a one to two hour sitting, then simply pick up where I left off the next night.




Everything was from my stash, with the exception of the grosgrain ribbon on the hem- I saw this in a discount store the other day and couldn't resist it. And anyway, I'm only banned from buying fabric, not other bits and bobs :p
The main fabric is some lovely lightweight cotton- voile or lawn- that I have had in my stash for about 4 years. I will be making a couple of blouses for myself with the rest of it. The pink polka dotted stuff is something I bought to use as a coordinating fabric some time last year. And the third fabric, used for the smaller ruffle, is a lovely Robert Kauffman with gold outlines around the flowers. It is absolutely stunning. It came in a bag of fabric my friend gave me and there was only a really tiny cut of it. I think this was the perfect way to use it and show it off. I have enough to make some kind of matching hair adornment.




All in all, I really loved making this dress, and I cannot wait to see the look on my daughter's face when I give this to her on her birthday in two weeks!

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