Ottobre 03/05 #21, twirly shirt dress

This is the second of Toddler's winter dresses and it's a nice pattern, I've made it once before for Princess. It has a shirt style bodice with a gathered tiered skirt and there is an optional separate underskirt which looks very cute underneath it, it peeps out at the hem and puffs out the dress skirt beautifully. Toddler chose the fabrics and I dyed them with Dylon dyes as leaving them white is really not an option with this child.



I ran very short on fabric for the dress so the inner collar stand is cut from the skirt fabric, the top tier on the dress skirt is pieced from scraps and the hem frill is missing. There are also no instructions given on how to put together the collar and stand, the pattern instructions refer you to a separate magazine page but they're not there. I have a feeling you can download them from the Ottobre website but I'm not sure. I opted to wing it :)



The underskirt uses the same pattern as the dress skirt with a little extra width to the top tier to allow for an elastic casing, it's a lovely twirly skirt which can of course be made and worn on its own if you're looking for a full, twirly skirt pattern.





Toddler took it out for a test spin in the garden.

Autumn dress for Toddler

What do you do when you really don't like the fabrics your child has chosen for a new dress? Embellish the life out of them and try to cover them up!





I am completely in love with this dress now that it is finished, it took hours to stitch out all of the embroideries and while it didn't take long to hand sew the buttons and roses I really, really hate hand sewing and was very glad when it was done. The pattern is Ottobre Autumn 2006 #10, Toddler chose the fabrics from my stash and approved my other additions :) The fairies are from Emblibrary and stitched out very well.

         

I digitised the text on the bodice using my embroidery machine's software and built-in fonts and I lined the front and back bodices instead of using facings.



The overskirt and sleeves are hemmed using a decorative stitch that looks like little flowers and the underskirt has orange flowered ricrac, satin bows and heart shaped buttons.



And of course you need some modelling shots :)









The best thing about this dress is how much Toddler loves it, she asks for it in the morning when she's getting dressed and hugs it when I give it to her :) It makes it worth the 7+ hours it took to finish!!

Polka dots and ribbons

Toddler needed a quick pair of trousers following a growth spurt, Ottobre Spring 2010 to the rescue! Pattern #2 minus the pockets and hem frills sews up very quickly and the red polka dots go really nicely with her Muksis tunic.



And a new Ebay store for my favourites list, vivimagasin sells some of the cutest ribbons I have seen. I bought a few for the girls, delivery was free and took around ten days to arrive in the UK from Hong Kong. The girls love them, it's just as well I got three colours of Hello Kitty or there would have been some fights!

Jalie 2449 wrap top

Another cold weather top for me and yet another pattern I've had for ages without sewing up. The fit is OK, I had to add a 3" contrast band at the hemline to get it to the length I like (i.e. actually covering my tummy!) but I quite like the way that looks and will do that again if I make another one instead of lengthening the pattern. One thing I really don't like is that after cutting out two full length front pieces the instructions tell you to cut off the left front just below the waist. It reduces bulk at the front I suppose and makes the top a little cooler to war but good grief it is annoying! It makes it awkward to put the top on in the first place and I have to fiddle with it every ten minutes to stop it riding up and looking awful. This one is for the charity shop and the next one will have two full length front pieces both sewn into the hem band.

Ottobre Woman CW303

I love this pattern and have made several tank tops and short sleeve T-shirts from it, with autumn drawing in I made my first long sleeve version. Rayon lycra fabric from Tissu and a freezer paper stencil that is included with the pattern. I was really pleased with this, the sleeve length is just where I like it.

School uniforms

The kids all started a new school this year which meant a little production line sewing. Eleven navy blue tops later, I lost the will to sew for a while after this! All the tops are from Ottobre Spring 2003, #'s 31 and 16. The navy blue cotton lycra came from Tissu which is one of my favourite online fabric shops. I also made two pairs of grey trousers, one each for Toddler and Monkey, using the Vilkas pattern from Ottobre 04 2008. They're both a size 98cm but Monkey's are lengthened a lot.

Copy of my favourite skirt

We shall skip over my absence of several months with a slightly embarrassed and apologetic cough and get right on to a sew'n'show.....

My favourite summer skirt for the last couple of years has been one my mam bought me from an unidentified high street shop (i.e. she couldn't remember and I don't recognise the label). It's made from natural coloured linen and has six identical flouncy gores with an invisible zipper in the side seam. I had been wanting to copy it for ages and finally gave it a go this summer. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be and came out just perfectly the first time round. I ironed the original skirt, laid it out so one whole gore was flat on my table and just traced the shape of the gore onto my Fabribaste paper. Seam allowances were added when I cut it out and about an hour later, Ta-Da!!



One new summer skirt which is just lovely to wear, it's a very soft, drapey linen/rayon blend that has been ageing in my stash for a few years. The colour goes really well with the rest of the pieces I made for my summer SWAP, I love this and have been wearing it as often as I can. Here's the zipper in the side seam, you can see the top stitching on this panel starts lower down than the others as I couldn't topstitch alongside the zip.



The waistband is finished with petersham ribbon, I stitched in the ditch along the panel seams to hold it in place.



And here's a modelled shot courtesy of Toddler. Please ignore the sweetie tins in the background, they hold notions honest!!