Daily Archives: November 24, 2009

Last Friday a friend came around to my place so I could show her how to sew a dress for her daughter.  Of course, I’m ill qualified to be teaching anyone to sew garments since my skills are pretty rudimentary… So I thought I’d better make a trial dress before she arrived (above)

I drafted the pattern based on one of the dresses in that Japanese pattern book I recently bought.  The pattern had a gathered skirt which I replaced with an ‘all in one’ A-line shape. 

I think it worked out pretty well 🙂  I tweaked the hemline a bit for the final version which my friend sewed (and FINISHED!) during our 5 hour long marathon sewing play date. 

She used a red print cotton out of my stash to make up the dress and I think she did a marvelous job considering she’d never sewn before, my general lack of experience, and that we had her 5 month old daughter and 6 month old Jasper demanding our attention.

It wasn’t until that night that I realised that these patterns (which you trace off a big sheet at the back of the book) need to have seam allowances added.  No wonder everything works out so small!  What made me finally twig?  The shoulder straps on our dresses are very skinny compared to the pictures of the dress in the book.  The dresses still look pretty cute I reckon!

In other news: I’ve been sewing blocks together for the red and ‘neutral’ quilt.  Yesterday I had the moment of truth where I put the two block types together and realised that it isn’t going to work. 

Luckily, today my workroom is being converted into a spare bedroom as Chris’ mum arrives for a short visit tommorow.  I’m going to put the quilt away and think about it for a little while.  Meanwhile, I’ll be distracting myself with some hand embroidery. Yay!

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