Beige short sleeve dress

This is one of our winter dresses and with some sort of wool mix.

This dress is not lined  (quite unlike me but which I want to be doing more of now., at least for casual outfits)

This was made using burdastyle 9564  same as this dress  (the brown strawberry dress) 

Bias binding was used round the neck line, four chocolate buttons was used and cream  bows (just for the sake of it :)) attached to the sleeves and hem of the dress.

Made with Burdastyle 9564

Tired...

Could see myself making more of this kind of dresses as its a bit more grown up looking and not too 'girly', not that there is anything wrong with 'girly' dresses as we love 'girly' dresses.

...but finally managed a smiled.

Would like to call this part of 'my little lady collection'.

posted pictures in this post by mistake before finally editing and writing the words in. lol
Hope you like what you see and will be back.
regards.

Brown Strawberry Dress.

we started to make our winter wardrobe early.

One good thing about making clothes is !You decide, you design!

So we decided on lots of long sleeves, warm fabrics and jackets. (Haven't had time to make the jackets yet though.)

Been really busy sorting out our collection that's why we have not been in the blog world lately.

This is a dress made in chocolate brown corduroy. Its got a strip of brown corduroy with red/white trimmings on both sides. This trimmings was edged stitiched on the brown strip of corduroy. 

Started using design elements that the girls will love hence the strawberry buttons.

When the dress was made and they were asked to wear for fitting they both refused, which is nothing new..

  until they saw the strawberies!!! they happily wore the dress and didn't want to get it off.

Same trimmings was added to lower part of skirt which has another gathered layer attached to it.

More strawberries at the back.

Back view of dress.

Not a very clear picture but you can see some excitement over the buttons. lol.

The sleeves was made using this burdastyle pattern  9564

Well, another winter collection will be on its way shortly.

Regards.

Pink Two-layered dress with yellow trim

 Made this dress well over a year ago, but i just love it so much i have to blog about it.
Was made using butterick's 4967 pattern.

Butterick 4967

Made the yellow version. Fabric used is cotton fabric but with light flowery embroidery design.

 The instructions in the pattern are quite simple and straight foward.

Centred Zipper

 Ribbon trim came about when I wanted to hem and found hemming very difficult.( go figure, circle skirt) I then took the ribbon sewed it on to the edge without even folding it down. Luckily fabric didn't fray that much.

I just love this picture...

Someone is trying to make an entrance...

All for now.., until later. Regards.

Lace Peplum/Dress

It's so hot, mummy !!

We went to Paris for a wedding this August. One of the themes of the wedding was to wear something purple and since I was blessed (given) this fabric earlier in the year, i decided to use it for myself and the girls. Also made a trouser with waistcoat for the boy but that is not featured here.

By the way temperatures that weekend reached up to (38°C = 100.4°F). It was sooo hot. So the frowns in the pictures are not real frowns :) but due to the sun.

Top bodice and peplum of my dress is self drafted. :)  yes, I am planning to eventually move away from store bought patterns because they are so limiting in designs and size variations.

Peplum was drafted by using the idea of a simple circle skirt. Total length was just about 11" long, width was my waist size.

Back View.

Don't have a picture for my back view but its pretty much similar to front view, peplum goes all the way around.

Used 'pinks' i.e bows, shoe to compliment their purple dresses.

Why the ribbon running down the centre front of the girls you say? Well i realised after cutting the top pattern that it was slightly bigger than i wanted, so i sewed about 1/4th inch seam allowance right sides together and ended up with a line down the centre which i covered with the ribbon. In fashion a mistake normally leads to another fashion invention. lol. it turned out OK i guess. 

Notice the purple trim detail on the peplum?

While we wait for the coach to pick us from the registry to the wedding reception venue...

Probably wanted a drink at that time.

That's a picture of myself and one of the girls. We mostly survived on drinks because of the heat.

The wedding itself was beautiful and fully romantic if I must say. The bride and groom were both adorable.

Until next time, have a wonderful day, week, month and please leave a message so I will know you were here.

Regards.

Lace with Satin dress.

Was quite excited when I came up with the idea of mixing this little yardage of lace I had with satin left over from the girls birthday dress. As I got a bit tired of making (waistline) gathered dresses I wanted a full circle skirt...

Circle Skirt

...I got a full circle skirt. One of the girls actually loves to twirl around and around in her dresses, guess she would have enough fun in this dress.

Twirling...

Puff sleeve detail.

First time making a puff sleeve, it took about an hour to make four sleeves!! 

I gathered sleeve cap as normal and used shirring elastic to make three rows of shirring to the sleeve hem. I love how it turned out though.

Back view

Had a bit of issue getting a smooth line at the centre back when attaching the invisible zip to the skirt. (where the crease is). I sewed on zip three !! times, but still no luck and i just gave up. Does anyone know why this happens? never had problems with satin before now. :(

Purchased flower added as an embellishment.

Little flower detail added to the side.

Overall this turned out pretty OK, but I just don't feel a connection (if am allowed to say that!) with this outfit.

Maybe its the (plain) colour or I had higher expectations...

Can't even put my finger on it.

Anyway its done and they will wear it. Sure they will like the full skirt. :)

With regards to a comment I received from Marie, I always make two of everything but sometimes I use one girl (the more willing one) for a photo shoot because it is faster and easier to deal with one than two. :)

Until you have reason to be here, see you around.

Cream and Brown polka dot dress

Wanted to make a bubble dress for the girls, got this fabric and decided it was a perfect match.

Its some sort of satin polyester blend fabric. 

I just love this bubble dress.

Was going to use my simplicity pattern for this bubble but believe me I just didn't 'get' the instructions on the pattern about how to make the bubble so I decided to use my imagination. This worked out just fine.

Let me explain.

This is a fully lined dress. i made sure the length of the lining was shorter than length of dress fabric.

I sewed the hem seam before the waist seam.

Putting both fabric and lining together using normal seam allowances I sewed an elastic round the fabric +lining to create the gathers at the hem. 

when this was turned right side up, the bubble was formed.

Main principle is because lining is shorter than fabric, after it is sown together, lining pulls up the dress fabric and a bubble is form.

Sorry no pictures to explain, if you interested in full tutorial, let me know and will arrange one.

 Actually made dress in February. Was going to add extra details using same colour brown velvet fabric for a bow. I looked for over month and couldn't get brown velvet in the exact same shade!!!

Plan b was use any dress fabric in same shade. found that and bow was made.

This is the back view, can you see extra detail

This back detail idea was from simplicity 1913 but it was mostly used in front or at the side of the simplicity dresses

Love this dress so much we used it for our family picture.!

Got this fabric really cheap, wishing a bought more of it now... like a whole roll of it. lol. joking.

Stay tuned as although I haven't blogged a lot lately. I have made a lot. Once pictures are taken, they'll be here.
That's all for now...

Jubilee Colour Blocking

One of the people that inspired me into colour blocking is Erica B. http://www.ericabunker.com

decided to use the jubilee colours or Tommy's (navy blue, white and red) which ever you prefer. lol

I love how easily it came together, was actually inspired by this pattern from Burdastyle.

From Burdastyle.

Decided to add piping as and extra detail.

Quite pleased with result. Would have added link for piping tutorial, but just kept technique in my head. Will try to document all my sources henceforth.

Busy licking a sweet!!!
clearer piping detail...

How else could I get her to agree a photo shoot?

And how did I finish the back?

...with three buttons blue white red of course. :)

This is all for now.

I have tons of ideas of colour blocking, should make more sometime soon.

Regards to you and yours.

Red and Black check dress

Made this lovely dress using  Simplicity 4384. I just love most simplicity and newlook patterns.

 

This dress is not lined but finished using bias binding on the neck and armholes, I pleated the skirt instead of flare as on the pattern.  Seeing a trend with pleats??..... Overlocked on the inside.

Bow detail

I wanted to add a little something extra, was going to add two bows each at same place but got lazy and stuck with one. ha.

I do love taking pictures and toys but I like mummy's phone better. 

...And this is the back view, do you think its nice?

I'm very lucky that this dresses lines up. In fact I don't think in sewing one runs into the kind of luck I ran into by the dresses lining up. (normally if something could go wrong it does !) I completely forgot to watch out for the strips and make sure they lined up when cutting, was already joining seams when i remembered screamed, and checked...

...it all lined up. (almost lol)

Mummy's dresses are better than buying from shops, yippee!!

I do really hope.
Until next time, Adois.