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blessing dress drawing winners

children's fashion workshop — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 22:36:22 +0000

Happy Friday everyone! Thanks so much for all your participation on the blessing dress, I seriously don't think I could have slogged through it without you.

The winners of the drawing are:

Shayna, who said :"It looks beautiful!! It will be a treasured heirloom! Well worth all of the frustration!"

and Jerri, with her comment: "I like the pale pink ribbon and the two narrow laces. I might try to sew down the pink ribbon accent, then sew the openwork lace over top of it so the pink would peek out through the oval windows."

Congratulations, ladies, and your infant-sized basic patterns will be arriving in your email boxes shortly.

~Erin~

blessing dress::day 5

children's fashion workshop — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 23:41:34 +0000

Thank you all so much for the encouragement. I needed it so badly to finish this dress!

I bound the sleeves, put them in, did up the side seams, then added buttonholes and buttons, just like we did with the other baby dresses.

Then I hemmed it, clipped all the threads, pressed it again, slipped it on over the dress form...

stepped back...

And it was all worth it. How does that happen?

I wish you could see the fabric in real life. It glows. Just dully, not shiny-lame-Halloween-costume glowing, just a subtle, silk sheen. Beautiful.

When I got to the hem, it just seemed so right left simple. Because the fabric's a little sheer, doubling the fabric for the hem gives it the effect of a wide ribbon at the bottom.

I wanted to do a tuck. I tried to convince myself. But I couldn't. It was so lovely left alone. Perfect.

Sleeve detail:

And it's sort of unbelievable, after all this time, that it's actually finished. On Friday I'll announce the winners of the drawing.

See you then!

~Erin~

blessing dress::day 4

children's fashion workshop — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:48:48 +0000

Ooh, do you ever have a project that you just want to ball up and throw in a corner?

Yep. This is that one. I've sweated, fretted, coaxed and cajoled, ripped out seams, re-sewn, and am generally fed up with this dress. Maybe it's just the fabric. Dupioni is soooo pretty, but it's a beast to work with because it's loosely woven and it ravels like nothing you've ever seen.

But I'm taking a deep breath and reminding myself that I'm nearly through.

Here's how it's (slowly) shaping up:

Now, with the shoulder seams sewn, the neckline bound, and the placket and waistline seams finished, all we've got left to do is put in the sleeves, sew up the side seams, put in the buttons and buttonholes, and hem and add tucks at the bottom. It'll be a cinch, right?

Right.

~Erin~

blessing dress::day 3

children's fashion workshop — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 21:59:41 +0000

Whew! And what a wait!

Okay, to be truthful, I can't blame the lag time entirely on the postal service. I've been a bit under the weather, and in less-than-prime sewing fettle. I can, however, bear the cries of this lovely bit of silk no longer. "Erin," it says, "cut me...sew me!"

And how can I refuse?

Now, here's the silk as it looks straight out of the mailbox:

Lovely, but it's a little too crisp for my taste. I want it softer. So...steady yourselves...I'm going to wash it. I know, I know. Usually dupioni should only be dry cleaned. But that's so it doesn't lose that crispness. I want it to lose it a little.

Here it is after a spin through the washing machine on "handwashables". (But not through the dryer):

Yes, I like that much better. Needs pressing, but now has a slightly softer hand.

So, where to begin? Our dress will be made just like any other yoke dress, the difference being only in the details.

Okay, then, we'll start with the bodice.

First, we'll cobble together this awful looking mess: (which takes an awful lot longer to do than to say)

Just like we did with the Easter birds dress.

Then, ever so carefully, using the already-cut-out bodice front lining as a pattern, we'll cut it to the right shape:

Wow. That looks better, doesn't it?

Now, before we put away the lace and beading, I think we'll do the sleeves.

I think for the sleeves we'll do a regular, bias bound puffed sleeve (like we've been doing on every baby dress we've done lately...yawn) but we'll put a lace accent down the middle.

First, we'll join the laces with a little zigzag stitch, and sew them to the right side of the sleeve, centering the beading.

At this point there's one row of straight stitching down the lace header on each outer edge of the lace.

Now we'll flip the sleeve over, cut it right straight down the center, and fold those sides back.

Then we'll press, and zigzag over the lace header from the right side of the sleeve. Then trim close to those zigzag stitches on the wrong side. The left side in the photo above shows the trimmed seam allowance, the right hasn't been done yet.

From that point, the sleeves are the same as any puffed sleeves, what with the gathering and the binding.

Next time we need to address the cutting out and smocking of the skirts.

See you then!

~Erin~

substitute boning

children's fashion workshop — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 16:08:40 +0000

Those of you who are working on costume corsets may find this tip useful.

If you find the prospect of finding a source for boning daunting, you can do what I did with my very first corset several years ago. Not being in proximity to a fabric store, and being unwilling to drive half an hour just to pick up boning (I wouldn't have only picked up boning, and I knew it) I cut up heavy household plastic (like the kind detergent bottles are made from) into the correct-sized lengths and widths and put it down in those boning channels like it was honest-to-goodness boning.

If you're into authenticity or anything like that, well, forget I ever said this. But for a costume for a child, makeshift boning works just fine.

Best of luck!

~Erin~

blessing dress::day 2

children's fashion workshop — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 00:06:10 +0000

I. Ordered. Fabric. Oh, I love ordering fabric. Because it's almost like waiting for Christmas, and then a box comes in the mail, and all the kids want to know what's inside, and I excitedly show them, look! buttons! fabric! lace! and they turn away in disgust, and then I'm alone, rubbing my cheek down the grain, fingering the folds...

Ahem. Did I mention I ordered fabric? While we wait for it to come we'll need to make a pattern. Which, unfortunately for us, because we could really use the distraction, is the work of a few minutes.

What I hear us saying is that we like a rounded yoke, and a simple hem. So here's what I think we'll do. We'll keep most of the embellishment up top, by doing a rounded yoke with vertical stripwork, a lace accent down the middle of the sleeve, just a couple of rows of smocking below the yoke, and, to keep things simple at the hem level, maybe we'll put a tuck or two.

Basically, then, we're going to make the same dress we made when we made our two smocked baby dresses, with this exception:

The front and back yoke seam will be at the same level, and we'll curve them down to the center front and back, adding about 3/4".

The skirt waistline seam will need a corresponding slice cut out of it, but we can do that when we cut the fabric. (When we cut the fabric, are you so excited?)

And, dang it, that's it. Now we just have to wait for that fabric to come, and we'll be all ready to sew up our blessing dress supreme. Have a lovely weekend, and sew something!

~Erin~

blessing dress::day 1

children's fashion workshop — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 21:51:16 +0000

Okay, then. If we're going to design a blessing dress, we'll need to start by building a pattern. (As always.) And building a pattern starts by sketching it out until we get it all right.

There are seven steps to consider when we draft a pattern:

1) Waist
2) Armhole/Sleeve
3) Neckline
4) Closure
5) Style Lines
6) Skirt
7) Seam and Hem Allowance

Some of these items are constrained by the classic nature of the style we're going for. I agree with the commenters from yesterday that puffed sleeves are pretty much de rigeur. Also, I'm pretty sure the neckline needs to be round, and since I don't want to do a collar, that closes up that option nicely. For a closure, I think we'll stick with a center back, button closure.

But that still gives us a lot of room for creativity and decision-making. So first let's talk about the "waist", which means what waistline/yoke/etc. we want our little garment to have.

Exhibit A:

If we go with a basic, very high yoke dress, like this one, we could either do heirloom stripwork on the yoke, like the Easter Birds Dress, or smocking below the yoke, like we just recently did on our two baby dresses. Or, we could combine the two. That could be fun. I'm convinced you could use this one high-yoke pattern endlessly and get a thousand different dresses.

We could leave the skirt plain, and get away with it, because dupioni will do the talking for itself if you need it to, or we can do some fanciness down there. We'll get to that in a minute. Now we're talking what to do upstairs.

Here's a different option. We could curve the yoke seam, which would give a softer look. Then we could do stripwork and/or smocking. If we wanted to, we could turn the stripwork sideways. Could also be fun.

C: (Please excuse the skewampus drawing here.)

OR, we could do a rounded yoke like this, but extend it down at the center to the hem. This would give us a nice flat place to play with some lace shaping and/or embroidery. We could then do fanciness around the rest of the skirt, or not.

Those are three thoughts. If they get other, better thoughts going for you, do let me know. This is the brainstorm stage, right here, out in the open.

Now we need to think about hems.

We can do a straight hem, like the one shown in drawing C up there, with fanciness (by fanciness I mean more stripwork, i.e. puffing, lace, beading, tucks, pintucks, etc.) in straight or shaped lines above it, or we can do a shaped hem, like one of these:

The one on the left is scalloped, the one on the right has points, and above them are pintucks, puffing, and lace shaping.

One thing to consider is the balance between the fanciness of the upper dress and that of the lower. I've heard tell that if there's much embellishment higher up in a dress, the lower levels ought to be left plainer, and vice versa. What do you think? Is there any truth to that, or is that something that doesn't apply when it comes to blessing gowns? What combination of the above should we go forward with, or do you have a better idea?

Your thoughts?

~Erin~

blessing dress

children's fashion workshop — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 18:05:56 +0000

It's time.

Eight weeks to go before I've got a baby girl, and it's time to design The Big One. The blessing dress.

Only problem is, there are so very many options to choose from when designing a blessing dress. So what do I do? I come to you, of course, for your opinions. Let's design this one together, shall we? I had such fun doing that with some of our other projects, and I think this is an ideal time to do it again.

So let's look closely at what I have, I'll tell you a little of what I'm thinking, and we'll get those creative muscles working.

I've pulled out the trims you see above. There's a couple of yards of this lovely, just-off-white crochet lace that I've had forever and just not known what to do with. It's about 2 1/2" wide. There's 1/2" French cotton lace, and 1/2" beading. I've got several yards of the lace, only a couple of yards of the beading. Also, I have a little pink silk satin ribbon we can use if we like. We can use any/all/none of these trims, they're just a place to start.

For the fabric, I'm thinking I want to use a lightweight white silk dupioni, either this http://www.etsy.com/listing/22168696/silk-dupioni or something very similar.

My own personal preferences: I like 'em long, I don't mind smocking, I'm not too bad at hand embroidery. Lace shaping could be fun, puffing's always a kick.

Now, if we come up with something totally new, I wouldn't be averse to making it into a pattern so more people could use it (without having to draft up a pattern themselves), but I'm a little skeptical, since the blessing dress pattern arena seems pretty full.

***Just to make this a little more exciting for everyone, at the end of our project I'll select two winners and send them each a set of basic bodice and pants patterns for infant sizes (3-6m, 6-9m, and 9-12m). To enter, leave a comment on one of the posts during our project, and for two chances to win, mention this project or this website on your blog, then come back and let me know about it.***

So! What are your ideas? What makes a perfect blessing gown? What would you do with the trims and fabric shown above? Can we mix white and off-white? Help me out here, the clock's a-tickin'...

~Erin~

costume corsets

children's fashion workshop — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 14:17:57 +0000

Today is September 23rd. And you know what that means.

That's right! Halloween's-a-comin'.

Your children are going to realize that Halloween's-a-comin' about two days beforehand, and demand that you do something spectacular in the way of a costume in that time period. I'm graciously reminding you this early so you don't have to deal with that kind of pressure. Kind of me? I thought so.

Now, it has long seemed to me that there are two patterns which, if you had them, would allow you to make costume after costume, with endless varieties, until the cows come home. For boys, a vest pattern would do so many things. He could be a cowboy, or a pirate, he could be a "working man" (a construction worker, my 3-year-old's current favorite) and the list goes on. V is for versatile when it comes to vests.

For a girl, a three-piece costume could serve much the same purpose. First you'd need a peasant top or dress. Then a skirt, of any type you can imagine, or layers of skirts, and so on, and to pull the whole look together, a decorative corset.

See what I mean?

The peasant dress and skirt are easy enough for you, I know. But the corset you may need a little help on. Ooh, me! Me! I can help! Today I have a new pattern available on the ready-to-sew patterns page for costume corsets, in sizes 2-10.

There are front lacing corsets:

back lacing corsets:

and side lacing corsets:

and you can choose whether you want the bottom front edge to be flat, curved, or pointed.

Of course you don't HAVE to wear these corsets with a skirt, or even with a costume at all:

It's up to you! Have fun! These corsets whip up fast, leaving you time to play with embellishments, pull together the rest of the costume, or, you know, run to the store at the last minute for a plastic cutlass. As always, if you happen to make one (or more) of these, and you happen to take photos, we'd all love to see them in our Flickr Photo Pool.

Enjoy, and Happy Halloween!

~Erin~

simply shirring, and a pretty pinny

children's fashion workshop — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:47:12 +0000

Today, hurrah! I have something new for you. The apron dress, one of our old pals here on cfw, is now available in a ready-to-sew pattern.

(Click right here on this cover image to go to the ready to sew patterns page.)

Here are some photos of the cover sample, a little larger.

Here's what one of our friendly pattern testers had to say about it:

" I love the pattern for the peasant dress and apron. I am so excited to make a second one. I had so much fun learning to use the elastic thread and gathering up the fabric with that method. AND I was pretty afraid of the binding but am now pretty good at it thanks to your information. I am off to find 3 more pieces of fabric for another outfit. Thanks so much for this fun pattern."

Any time I can be instrumental in sending someone off to find more fabric, I feel completely fulfilled. My work here is done.

This dress is really a lot of fun to make, fits a child for a long time, and as a bonus, if you're not a fan of buttonholes or zippers, hasn't any.

Fans of our peasant dress will recognize an old friend here. One skill that's essential to getting the peasant dress right (and one thing that a couple of testers had trouble with) is machine shirring with elastic thread. Now, this is one of those things that may be tricky to get started with, but once you've got it, it's easy and valuable in so many places.

So, of course, I'll show you.

Shirring:

Basically, the type of shirring we're talking about uses elastic thread in the bobbin to do its magic. Elastic thread comes on spools, in black and white, from your sewing goodies shop.

First order of business is to get the elastic onto the bobbins that your sewing machine uses. It has been recommended by other folks that you hand-wind the elastic onto the bobbin. I haven't tried it. That sounds like tedious torture to me, so I wind mine with ye olde bobbin winder on my machine, and it seems to work just fine.

Also in the above picture, you'll see I've got a piece of quilting-weight cotton fabric, with one edge finished with a little double-fold hem.

Now, I'm going to shirr the edge of the fabric here, running my first row of stitches about 1/8" to the inside of the hem stitching. That'll give me a little ruffle on the edge. I'm using my machine's longest stitch length, a 5mm stitch. At the beginning and end I'll backstitch.

First row:

You'll notice that hardly did any gathering.

Here's the back of that row:

Then I'll put another row 1/8" to the inside of the first one, flattening the fabric as I sew:

That gathered it a little more, not much.

A third row, same rules:

Now you see what we've got, a loosely-gathered edge.

Here's the back:

Here we'll tie the ends of the three elastic threads together on each end:

And now, with the elastic facing up, we'll take a hot iron and puff steam all up and down our elastic rows until they stop scrunching up.

And here's what happens:

Magic. Our loosely-gathered edge has become a considerably-gathered edge. And there you have it. No mystery, really, after all!

So:

-Get yourself "A Pretty Pinny".

-Shirr up a storm.

-Take pictures and post them in the CFW Flickr Photo Pool so we can all ooh and ahh.

Can't wait to see your creations!

~Erin~