Dress for Sarah

A dress for  Sarah, who turned six in June. She has been asking me for a dress since I made two  for her sister Hannah.

The pattern is Simplicity 2377, view E made in size 7.

                          

April Sewing

A recent trip to Texas netted some fabric that was turned into a dress for grand-daughter Hannah. She is 14 about to turn 15 this month and fits a size 12 pattern perfectly. I don't understand these bloggers who make size 4 or 6 for themselves when they can't possibly measure that small. I mean Hannah is a very slender teenager and her measurements put her exactly into a size 12. I know that some patterns have more ease than others, but generally I have found that they are in the ballpark and only require minimal tweaking to make them fit well.

                                               
The pattern for this dress is Butterick 6331; it has a vintage look to it and could be a little too cute, but hopefully she will wear it. I am making the same pattern again in a soft printed chambray, that version will be collarless and sleeveless plus it will have the full skirt. So it will look more like a sun-dress.
I figure that since version 1 fit her so well, that I should make a second version right away before she grows. The only changes I made to the pattern were to bring the neckline in slightly (it looked very wide to me) and I took in the side seams 1/4" directly under the arms to eliminate gaping there.

Second version of Butterick 6331 in a lovely printed denim chambray. Instead of gathering the skirt, I pleated it so that it would not be a full waist. Very few people feel comfortable in a gathered waist I find. Pleats give you the exact same circumference in the skirt but the fullness is controlled at the waistline.

These two fabrics will be made into a tiered dress for grand-daughter Sarah who is five, but a very tall five. The pattern is Simplicity 2377, which I picked up at Joanne's in Texas. Simplicity patterns aren't sold in Canada any longer. The reason given is that they don't print the instructions in French and Canada insists on all products being sold in the two official languages. Stupid I say, as the percentage of people who speak French in Canada is not that great. There are probably more people who speak Chinese than speak French now.

I will make her a size 7, as she is growing like a weed. She is already wearing Hannah's old clothes from when Hannah was 8 years old. I had the plaid in my stash and picked up the batik pink quilting cotton to coordinate with it. Sarah's favourite colour of course is pink, as is the case for most little girls.

And the yellowy cotton above is going to be a gardening blouse for me, using Vogue 8689.  My daughter in Texas made this pattern up for her very first sewing project and it looked great. She made it first in a cotton/linen blend, then again in a cotton lawn print. She said the second version looked like scrubs so she took off the sleeves and bound the armholes. And that blouse looks wonderful. She ties the ends in a knot and wears it with a very cute heart-printed blue denim.

I also bought three fabrics from Blackbird Fabrics last week. One is a stretch twill in tan to make into pants, and there are two lengths for summer blouses. One is a double gauze in navy that I think will be very interesting to work with. 

Photos from snowy northern Ontario

Tekla, now 23 weeks old

Standing on the back deck

Those perky ears

She blinks in the bright sunshine

So long since posting here, life has been busy with all sorts of new things. Adjusting to a new house, to a new community, to a new weather system and also to a new puppy.

But I have made some living room curtains. There is another window that needs another set, but this is enough for this week. I so dislike sewing home decor items, I find them incredibly frustrating for some reason. The quantity of fabric, the weight of it, the need for exact measuring, and then the task of mounting the hardware on the wall. Neither one of us is very practical and it takes a major effort to screw in brackets for the curtain rod. But we managed today to get this one up and so I felt obliged to finish the first pair of curtains and get them hung. The brackets need to be extended a little further as the curtains get stuck on the blind hardware that is also there, but that is a minor job.

I will so enjoy getting back to garment sewing. A zillion pieces of a pattern is far less intimidating that the 94" of curtain lengths that I was dealing with in these.

This is Tekla, a Norwegian elkhound. She is now 17 weeks old. We got her at 10 weeks, and she has been quite the handful. We have always had dogs from their young puppy age, but I don't recall any being quite so difficult to train as this one. Of course, having a UTI for two weeks at Christmas didn't help as she had to go out every 30 minutes and there were many accidents in the house. But she has a wonderful loving nature and is incredibly curious and energetic. And she will keep us exercising and walking which is so necessary in this stage of our life. 

Other than that, I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of spring. But before that, we are heading south to visit our daughter and her family in Texas. This is the daughter who took up sewing 10 months ago, and has successfully completed over 50 items of clothing so far.  This includes 4 bras and 2 pairs of jeans, there is no stopping her. She has discovered the wonderfully creative world of sewing and her husband even bought her a serger for Christmas. She made a fleece dog coat right off with it. Next are t-shirts and sweatshirts for the kids; the oldest boy said that he was looking forward to something without buttons. 

 
This is Tekla when we first got her, about 11 weeks old.

And this is her when she takes a nap; she often rolls over onto her back and is out for the count. Only lasts about 15 minutes though, then she is up and ready to go again.

Of course, this has severely limited the amount of sewing that I get done. But every thing has its season.