The weekend provided some quiet days that were spent sewing, creating and enjoying the slower pace and the process.  Because there were no deadlines (Christmas shopping/wrapping is finished), I was able to take my time and enjoy each step of the sewing and design process.  It’s a simple dress, so nothing new or stressful to deal with.

The project started with the polka dot leggings in my stash.  In case you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to sew up fabrics and use trims, laces, buttons, etc. from the stash.  That makes the outfits free, right???  LOL!  After some stash diving, I came up with a perfect match.  The fabric is a nice, heavier line pique – perfect for our southern winters.  I chose the Children’s Corner Apron pattern and used the Jenna Leigh view of the pattern.  My daughter requested a long sleeve dress, so I went through my other Children’s Corner patterns to find something with a long sleeve.  Were you aware that the collars/sleeves on the Children’s Corner patterns are interchangeable???  I love that!!!  I found the Louise pattern and used the long sleeve from the blouse.  Well, sort of used it – it was a very 80’s look with full sleeves and a puffy sleeve cap.  I removed a couple inches from the fullness and lowered the sleeve cap and felt that the finished sleeve was a better fit/look for the fabric choice.  I always have found the CC pattern long sleeves to be too long – both for our children and grandchildren as well as for the numerous clients that I sewed for over the years, so I removed about 2″ of length.  I think the finished sleeve should be perfect.

Rather than use the pocket that is in the pattern, I chose to do a monogram instead.  This is another of the Embroitique fonts.  As I worked on the dress, I realized that I had no matching piping nor any fabric that was the right color.  Ugh!  Thankfully I found some rick rack that was a perfect match!  Oh – I love when things come together like that!  When the dress was finished, I pulled out the button box and found the perfect buttons.  However, sadly there weren’t enough for the dress.    I found other matches, but wrong sizes.  I had to go out and find buttons, which I discovered was no easy feat!!!  Chain stores continue to carry less and less buttons and no matching buttons were found.  I resorted to looking in the scrapbooking/craft sections of stores, and after a couple different stores managed to score a large bag of mixed buttons that had some that were just right.  I was so pleased to discover that there were just enough for the dress in the one package!!!  Whew!  Dress done!

This dress is such a classic style and the back is as pretty as the front!  The box pleat is so cute.

I have plans for a matching sister outfit, but doubt that will get done before Christmas!

As I cleaned my sewing room, I found the smocked monogram insert that I had done for our new grandson.  I had planned it to be for his baptism outfit, but pleated the wrong fabric.  I didn’t notice until the smocking was finished.  So, rather than waste the smocked piece, I dove into the stash again and found a piece of fabric that I thought would work with it.  It is an end on end piece of khaki/tan and compliments the white insert with ecru smocking really well.  I sized up my pattern to a 9 mo. size – he’s growing so quickly that I feared the 6 mo. wouldn’t fit for long at all.  He’s already wearing that size quite well and will be out of it soon!  I don’t have a good way to photograph boys long-alls yet.  Something that I’ll need to sort out soon!  Oh dear, sorry for the blurry picture.

The smocking design is from the Ellen McCarn pamphlet on monograms.  I’ve used this so many times and feel sure I’ll continue to use it.

I’m sure that both of these outfits will look much cuter on the kids than they do in my pictures!

Now I will have to decide what I’ll be sewing next.  I think that the next couple days I will need to work on food for Christmas day rather than spend another quiet day in the sewing room.    I know the kids will all prefer that!

During this busy Christmas season, take time to stop and remember the reason for the season.  God gave us the most precious gift ever – his son, our Lord Jesus Christ who came to take away the sins of the world!  I love reading through the gospel accounts of his birth during the holidays and hope that you do as well.

Merry Christmas!

Kathy

This entry was posted in picture smocked dress on December 22, 2014.

I have’t disappeared – I’ve just been busy, as I’m sure everyone else has!  Thanksgiving was a wonderful celebration.  We enjoyed having all our kids and grandkids over for the feast along with a few extras.  It’s always fun to have everyone around.

Since then, it’s been busy getting gifts wrapped, spending extra time with the grandkids (LOVE our babies!!!), finishing up last minute shopping, etc.  I’m finished with that.  Whew!!!

Our youngest daughter requested some pillows for her apartment, so we spent time looking through my rather extensive supply of embroidery designs and she found just what she wanted.  They are such pretty designs!  The pillows are simple – no piping or other cording decorations – just pretty embroidery done on red velveteen.

The reindeer design comes from Bernina and is called Elegance Entwined. The Believe design comes from Embroitique.

This weekend I decided to enjoy another simple sewing project, so I pulled out my Children’s Corner “Lucy” pattern – this is a tried and true pattern and always looks sweet on the little girls.  I was trying to match some tights that were in my stash of little girl tights.  What happens next will make you laugh!  The tights all packaged up (you’ll have to imagine the cardboard package surrounding the tights) looked like this:

So I envisioned large polka dots and selected my embroidery designs with that in mind.  Many, many polka dots were embroidered!!!  Then it was time to photograph the completed sister jumpers, so I thought it would be fun to show the tights underneath the jumper.  Imagine my surprise when they ended up looking like this!

Clearly, they are more like polka dot stripes.  The huge polka dots that I was so excited about will be hidden underneath the dress.  LOL!  The moral of this story is – pull the tights out of the packaging to get the full picture and avoid any surprises!  Sadly, I only had tights for the larger dress, but I’m sure that something suitable will be found for the smaller one.

The embroidery designs from these jumpers came from a variety of places.  The embroidery on the chest of the smaller jumper comes from Bunnycup and is called Lots of Dots Font.  The rick rack design on the chest of the larger jumper comes from Zippy DesignZ.  The large polka dot appliqué circle design is from Lynnie Pinnie and the letter E inside the patch is Diva Dots Font from Five Star Fonts.  It was so fun to put all these designs together to come up with the polka dot jumpers.

So, this was my weekend polka dot sewing.  Nothing too exciting – just some fun sewing for the little girls.    I hope you’ve been able to squeeze in some fun sewing in between all of your busy holiday events as well.

Kathy

This entry was posted in picture smocked dress on December 14, 2014.