Ashlynn's Christmas Dress

I know, I know. It's May and I'm talking Christmas. However, after 36+ plus inches of snow this winter, it was very hard to convince Ashlynn to put her Christmas dress on and model for pictures outdoors. C'mon, it's the best lighting, who wants indoor shots?

So, with only a bit of delay, here is/was Ashlynn's Christmas dress.....

This is what I sketched after discussing with Ashlynn what she wanted:

The finished product.....loving her expression:

The back:

Some beautiful beads Mom, Paula and I found and put on the waistband:

A close-up of the sleeve:

The beads on the neckline:

And now for the rest of the story.

When making a dress completely from scratch, i.e. with no pattern, it can take a while. Especially when you do it when your parents are visiting and you're kind of in a time crunch. Mom and I worked through an entire day in attempt to get the dress done. We felt like we were on Project Runway racing against the clock, which was Ashlynn going to see the Nutcracker that evening.

We lost. In fact, I'm pretty sure we heard a faint "You're out" with a slight German accent in it.

But alas, I did finish the dress and just in time for Sunday service at church. It was fun creating something from ideas in Ashlynn's head and it was awesome having mom here to help!

Mama's Dress.

As I mentioned A couple of days ago, when I made Ashynn's dress for Easter, I actually had to make myself one first to help with the sizing down. Actually, I only made the bodice and part of the skirt front, finished hers and then finished mine. Can you tell I was a little short on time?

Here, I'll show you. Instead of continuing with the zig-zag pattern, I cut one solid piece of fabric for the back skirt. It's supposed to be that way, right?

Thanks to Ashlynnie for the photos!

The Easter Dress.

This year Ashlynn chose Anna Maria Horner's Evening Empire Dress for her Easter dress. It's a super cute dress with a zig-zag quilt pattern on the skirt...but, it only came in adult sizes. So here is what I did:

Step 1. Make one for myself so I could more easily size it down for Ashlynn.
Step 2. Procrastinate making hers because that seemed like it would be a pain.
Step 3. Less than one week before Easter size it down to perfection.
Step 4. Procrastinate making the skirt bottom....it won't take that long, the hard part (bodice fitting) is over...
Step 5. With only three days to get it together, call mom in near tears and hope she has some "options".
Step 6. Follow through with mom's brilliant idea and get the dress made....just in time!

The zig-zag patter on the dress comes from many small triangle pieces (these were larger on the original pattern, but remember, I sized it down) sewn together to look like zig-zags. this requires accuracy for perfect "points" and achievement of the desired look. I finished the front (ofcourse Ashlynn wanted it to be floor length!) and didn't know how I would possibly ever get the back done.

In comes mom to the rescue......what would I do without her?

"All you have to do is sew a bunch of strips of fabric and lay the front piece on the diagonal and cut that out for the back. Then it still looks pieced but will save you some time!"

Here I am sewing the strips:

You can see I placed the front piece on top to cut out the back piece on the diagonal:

How the diagonals turned out on the back:

A close up of the zig-zag...I ironed it like crazy, this was not the most cooperative fabric....

The improvised back...I actually like the way this drapes better:

The finished front...Ashlynn loved it! She picked out all of the fabric and it's order:

She calls it her prairie girl dress and said she wants to wear it every single day. With the time it took to make, I'm all for that!

Some bright ruffles!

Here is a dress I made last year for Easter. All I could think about were ruffles and gathers, I wanted layers of ruffles....and with the help of my Grams, we made it happen. She is always so encouraging for me to "step out of the boat" and take risks in my sewing. Sometimes just getting the courage to make that first cut on a beautiful piece of fabric takes confidence (and not just your own!) in the vision! Thanks for being in my corner Grams, that side zipper was an adventure!!

A New Dress

I know, I know, it's been forever since I blogged. My deepest apologies and regrets. Ok, now that I have that off my chest here is a new dress I just finished.....





This has been one of my favorite fabrics for aprons and I thought I would use the last remaining yardage I had for a dress. I plan on using the larger leftover pieces to make a dress for Ashlynn. Anyway, I'm off to sew, sew sew!

By the way, I made the necklace, just a fun little hobby I have been tinkering with. I've made a few, so I'll try to post pictures when I get a chance.