Thursday, December 11, 2014

Christmas dress in border print

Small dresses is what made me want to sew. One of the first things I sewed totally on my own was a dress (which is unblogged) for my eldest. In the subsequent years I have sewed a lot of different types of items but small dresses still have a special place in my heart. In this post I show you the two latest additions to my girls wardrobes.



In blogland I had seen several dresses made of cotton with a border print. I wanted my girls to have such dresses and ordered a few different fabrics with border prints. The main dress I am showing you today is made from Michael Miller Origami Oasis (which I bought at Fabric.com). I bought one and a half yard to make a dress for my middle daughter. It is my first dress in woven cotton combined with long sleeves. I somehow always assumed that those long sleeves without stretch would not be comfortable, and chose to focus on knit dresses for long sleeves. In blogland I saw several long sleeved dresses in woven cotton and I decided to try it myself. The bodice part is the upper part of a Louisa dress (of which I used the same size earlier for a dress in knit). The sleeves fit perfectly and she can easily move her arms. If you were also doubting if you should make your playful girl a long sleeved dress, I can assure you, just do it.





The skirt part, I made by cutting the border from the fabric over the entire length and ruffled it to fit the bodice. I did not make side seams and simply put the seam at the back.  I added handmade pipping that was left from an earlier project. I did not line the dress (I have an earlier bad experience with lining, and did not want re-try it in my first long sleeves woven cotton dress) and finished the neckline with a piece of handmade bias of which I had made the pipping.


The dress quickly got a twirl test.


After cutting the fabric for the dress I saw that I still had a relatively large piece of bird fabric left. I therefore re-used the (free) Janneke pattern and managed to cut a Janneke for my youngest out of the "scraps". The dress I made my youngest earlier still fits perfectly.




I also managed to make a few pictures of them together. As you can see from the behind picture, I managed to find two spots in the fabric where I could easily put my invisible zipper without decapitating birds.






The dresses will probably be worn over Christmas. Therefore, besides linking up to sew and show from StraightGrain I also link up this post to the Project Run and Play Christmas link up.

Feel free to leave a comment in the language you prefer (although Google translate might have to assist me if you choose something different than English, German, Dutch or Hungarian).  

9 comments:

  1. Super leuke stof! Ze gaan steeds meer op elkaar lijken :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ja heerlijke stof, vraagt echt om mooie jurk te worden verwerkt. Maar misschien zou een Theo ook wel een heel leuk effect geven bedank ik me nu....

      Delete
  2. Wat een mooie meisjes in mooie jurkjes! Prachtige stof!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Proficiat met je tweede plaats op de sew + show! Mooie kleedjes!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Knap! ik heb ook een soft spot voor border prints. En idd, ze lijken super hard op elkaar want bij het Jannekes kleed dacht ik dat het opnieuw de oudste was!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Als je ze in het echt ziet is het probleem een stuk minder omdat ze allemaal een centimer of 10 schelen, maar soms op de fotos is het voor anderen wel verwarrend :)

      Delete
  5. Hey, i have seen your incredible post. The little baby girl you have who is dresses up is very beautiful. Blue printed outfit look much better on little girls.

    ReplyDelete