Periwinkle Pleasures

Here is a dress I made quite a few years ago. I had a desire to make a sweet little girl's dress "just because". I  made it before I was designing my own patterns, and I used an old pattern my Mom bought for my sister's and I when we were babies. It must have been from the 70's or 80's.

     
This dress looked great on both these cute models!

I love these little eyelet sleeves!

The dress also had handy and attractive side pleats.

And...that's it.

Use it up. Wear it out. Make with do, or do without.

 I needed to make a jean skirt this summer, but I didn't have any material. In my linen closet however, I found our old stained and ripped jean couch cover. I cut it up and made it new again. This time though, in the form of a skirt. It's so rewarding to make use of what you've got!

A couch cover similar to what ours looked like
except ours was stained and worn at several spots.

A friend of mine modeling my skirt. 
Back View

I had fun and used yellow thread for the top stitching.
 I thought it looked pretty good that way!:-)
 Front View

Petite Pinafore Play

 With the help of a dear friend I made my first little girl's dress in 2006. I entered it in our county fair where I won "best of show" for my age division. Since that time, I've become infatuated with children's clothing! Sewing for kids is so fun! 

Shown bellow is the first child's dress I made.

This dress and other children's clothing I've sewn and or designed are made
 of soft breathable cotton with detailed attention to comfort and ease for the playful youngsters.

Cherries and Strawberries "Sweetness"

 

Summer is on it's way! Yay! Time to kick of your shoes and pull out some care free sun dresses!

Modeled here are two sundresses I made. The one shown above is made of a thick, durable, cherry and strawberry printed cotton with silk embellishment bows to top it all off. Peeking from underneath the sun dress, is a white, pinafore dress with perky, eyelet sleeves. My sweet little model stands picturesquely by a farmer's cherry tree in full bloom. How fitting for this dress, aye?

"Back View"

"Side View"

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For a bit of a fancier look, I made silk rose embellishments and sewed on a frilly hem made of tulle. Again my sweet little model is wearing the sweet, eyelet pinafore with a button down back and pin-tucked bodice. This is my favorite one! Doesn't she look adorable!

"Back View"

"Front Side View"




                      

                     

Ladies' Ice Show Costumes

And finally we have...the women's costumes

 from the Coram Deo 2012 Ice Show.

This dress was inspired from Liesl's dress in "The Sound of Music".
Using a pattern from this web site http://www.edelweisspatterns.com/patterns1.php ,  I made some  alterations to the dress that flatter a figure skater.

Here's what I did:

• used crepe and chiffon, which added an extra flow and ease to the dress.
•  shortened the dress by about a foot.
•  excluded the top ribbon on the dress and just sewed on a bow.
•  took out the puffy sleeve and made a draping / breezy sleeve with a lettuce hem.
•  put in an invisible zipper.
•  lined the yoke
• changed the neck line shape from square to a rounded scoop

Here is a picture of just some of the material consumed by this project.
Shown here are 11 bolts of material and ribbon.

Being a designer/seamstress for a project like this is so fun, especially when I get to see the finished product on someone. Here I am straitening out an outfit before "show time"!

 She's ready to roll!

Here is a sketch of the dress with my alterations.
 Excuse the scribbling, it's straight out of my design book.
I didn't end up following my sketch exactly, 
but I followed most of it.

THE ICE DANCERS
(or at least some of them)

Spring Cleaning for One-New Wardrobe for the Other

Since friends know I love to sew/design, I receive lots of unused material and notions. Quite often I'll be given ready cut out patterns which were never completed. The pictures bellow show one of these such stories and how I made, "one man's trash into another man's treasure"! 

Materials and their Origin:

• Vest- Simple 70's vest pattern cut out but never sewn
• Vest Buttons- Cut off an old ragged sweater
• Vest Lining- From a trash bag full of scrap materials
• Shirt- Made from material intended for a summer dress but never completed
• Shirt Buttons- Cut from a man's old work shirt                                                           

What I added

• Celtic knot theme
• Side pockets
• Embroidered Celtic tree of life

Google images are great! I can type in any design and have a  picture of it pop up in seconds. Here's  a picture of the tree design I used on the vest. Obviously I didn't follow it exactly, but I never did like coloring within the proverbial "lines".

                                                                               

My intention was to create a correlation between the swirly design on the buttons and the shirt's material pattern with the Celtic tree of life design on the vest back. 

            

 

                                                                                         

This latest creation now resides with my friend and design "guinea pig", Anna.

Wedding Tidbits

         Several folks have requested to see a post on the apparel I made for my sister's wedding. Although it doesn't look like much here, amongst the hustle and bustle of all the other time-consuming wedding preparations, it was a blessing that everything was completed in time!:)  

You'll notice, each outfit had a pleasant pink, green, and white floral material included in it's design. The bride purchased a whopping full bolt of this material, and I divided it out into the sixteen party members' apparel. 

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(Flower Girls)
Pleated pink dresses with side bows to match the boys' bow ties, complimentary edging frill,
and white puff sleeve blouses

                                       

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(Ring Bearers) 
Green Irish men's trousers, suspenders,  cute pin stripe vests,  ivy cap, and  wedding party  matching bow ties

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(Groom's Men)
Big floral bow ties. Kindly the bride ordered the vests! I didn't have to sew those!:-)

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(Groom)
Handsome neck tie for the groom.

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(Bride's attendants)
Wedding floral sashes for all six of the bride's maids.

With gathering at the seam line to flatter

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And lastly, to coordinate everything together completely the bride had the bouquets wrapped in floral strips of the left over material.

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Even the bride's bouquet was wrapped in the floral material

So, there we have it! Excluding the cloth napkins I sewed  for the quests and my sister and my rehearsal dinner dresses, that's everything.:)