Prisma becomes Rosie!

Pattern - Love Notions Prisma for girls
Skill Level - Confident Beginner
Fabric - cotton/spandex from l'oiseau fabrics
Skills - colour blocking, stripe matching

My friend's granddaughter is a voracious reader (actually "listener"!) and has an amazing imagination - you never know who she actually is from day to day.  Her mother told me that she's enjoying the series about Rosie Revere the Engineer and asked if I could make her a Rosie dress for her upcoming birthday.

As I was not familiar with that reading series, her mother sent me a picture and right away I could see that Love Notions' Prisma would be absolutely perfect!  And since mother was taking care of the head scarf, all I needed was white, black and red knit fabric.

Rosie's dress is very plain with black trim at the neck and sleeves but with alternate black and red stripes at the bottom of the dress.  Now that part would need planning!

I decided on 1" stripes joined with .25" seams so each stripe would be 1.5" wide.  The bottom black stripe would be 2" wide to account for the hem.  And then I would have to add 1.5" to the body above the stripes to account for the loss that the seams cause.  I taped the pattern pieces to my cutting mat and drew lines for the stripes, then cut for the addition to the body.  I was careful to write the colour on each stripe.

I also marked the stripes with numbers and F and B for front and back.  The Prisma version I was sewing is the A-line view, so all of the stripes would be different lengths and the outsides would have a slight slant to them.  I also made the hem straight instead of the slight curve to simplify things.

Then I placed all the pattern pieces with their fabrics.

Time to cut everything out.  The stripes were easy to cut - one at a time, starting with the largest and using the straight side of the previous cut for the next one.

Once everything was cut out, I placed all the pieces in their respective task.

I started with the stripes, going from bottom up and now you can see why numbers were important!  I serged the stripes together with a .25" seam.  And as I serged on each stripe, I steam pressed the seam down.

It's easy to get confused when sewing the stripes together (ask me how I know!) so here's a tip.  You are sewing the long side of the shorter strip to the short side of the longer strip.  When you do that, you should see a triangle of the stripe on the under side.

With all the stripes serged together, then they were serged to the body.  Now it was time to assemble the dress.

Front sewn to back and sleeves in place, the side seam needs to be sewn.  This is the tricky part!  I carefully pinned front to back and then with a longer stitch, sewed the striped section together with my sewing machine to make sure the stripes stayed put.

I did the rest of the assembly with my serger, but when I got to the striped section, I made sure the serging line was just outside of the straight stitching line.

A steam press and we're ready for the final bits - neckband, bands for the ends of the short sleeves and hemming.

I'm pretty pleased with how well it turned out and I hope "Rosie" likes it too!  Since it's a birthday present, I don't have a modelled photo, but if I get one, I'll update this post.

One final touch - a label which I purchased from Love Notions - which seemed totally appropriate!

If you don't already have this wonderful pattern for girls, you can get it from my affiliate link below.

Love Notions Prisma Dress sizes 2T to 16

Breckenridge Henley

Pattern - Love Notions Breckenridge Henley
Skill Level - Confident Beginner
Fabric - Cotton/spandex French Terry and jersey from l'oiseau fabrics
Skills - pattern marking, machine sewing buttons

Love Notions' newest pattern is the Breckenridge Henley.  As always, options, options, options!  Shirt, tunic and dress lengths as well as short and long cuffed sleeves, plus a rolled tabbed long sleeve option.  

The fabric suggestions are light to medium weight kits with at least 40% stretch.  I chose to make mine with cotton/spandex French terry from l'oiseau fabrics with the cuffs and neckband in cotton/spandex jersey.  This pattern is relatively simple once you get the neckband on and of course there's a video to help you with this step.  And naturally I have a few tips for you to help make it easier!

Marking

I can't stress enough how important marking is.  Make sure you transfer all marks to your pattern pieces.  I like to use long quilting pins with coloured heads.  I always use green ones to mark the backs of sleeves and white to mark the fronts and I do the same for the armscye markings.  That way, I never risk putting a sleeve in backwards.

I did the same for the neckband

I matched the pin colours on the band and the bodice front.  There are so many marks on these pieces you can see that it makes the job so much simpler when you have a quick reference to guide you.

Sewing on Buttons by Machine

It took me a long time to get brave enough to try sewing on buttons with my sewing machine.  Now I wonder why I waited so long!  Sewing with a needle and thread always took forever and cramped my hands up.  Once I found out how easy it is, I went out and bought a special foot for my machine, but you can do it without that and I'll tell you how later.

The first thing you need to do is position your buttons.  I pinned the placket together in between where the buttons would go to keep it in place, then dabbed glue stick on the backs of the buttons and placed them on the placket.  Don't worry about the glue - it won't clog up your needle.  By the time you take it to your sewing machine, the glue will be mostly dry.

Now it's time to sew the buttons on.  My machine has a stitch for sewing on buttons, but if yours doesn't, I'll tell you how to get around that, too!

I place the buttons under the foot roughly positioned and drop the foot to hold it in place.  My buttons have 4 holes and I like to do them diagonally.  I put the needle in the left-most hole and then turn the wheel by hand to make sure it's going to slip easily into the right-most hole and when I'm sure I have the button positioned properly, I let the machine do the work.  I do each button once to hold it in place.  

After trimming the loose threads, I turn the front piece around and do the other set of holes.  Each button is now sewn in place with an X of thread.

And to seal the deal, I dab the back of the stitching with Fray Stop to make sure the buttons stay in place.

Now if you don't have a button foot or a button stitch, you can still sew buttons on with your sewing machine as long as it has a zig zag stitch.

Take the foot off your machine.  Put the button roughly in place and drop the post right on it.  You will need to adjust the position a bit.  

Now turn off your feed dogs and set your machine to zig zag.  You want the stitch length as short as you can do it - like 0.

Lower the needle almost to your button and adjust the width of the zig zag stitch so that the needle will go easily into both holes - turn the wheel by hand.

I do about 3 or 4 stitches for each set of holes.  You can tie off the threads at the back and trim them.  And this is where I like to fix them with a drop if Fray Stop.

The placket neckband and row of buttons really finished the Breckenridge Henley. I love that there's a beautiful V and it's not too low.  The sleeve lengths give me plenty of options to change the look up and I love that I can make it tunic and dress length as well as shirt length.  

You can get this pattern through my affiliate link below.

Love Notions Breckenridge Henley - sizes XS to 5XL

Lace for a Girly Girl

Pattern:  Love Notions Cartwheel Collection

Skill Level:  Confident Beginner

Fabric: l'oiseau fabrics in Calgary, Canada

Skills: sewing with lace

My granddaughter loves the Cartwheel Collection circle skirt with its double layers of twirly goodness so making Miss A. an outfit from the pattern with lace overlay was a no-brainer!

And of course, I have to throw a panel from l’oiseau fabrics into the mix as well! My plan was to have the bottom layer of the circle skirt in  pale pink cotton/spandex.

The shorter over-skirt would be stretch lace.  I would also use the lace in the top to tie it all together.

The skirt was a snap.  I quartered the skirts and also the waistband and stitched them all together.  I lettuce hemmed the underskirt and scallop-cut the raw edge of the lace skirt.

I had a wonderful flamingo panel from l’oiseau for the shirt.  The lace was to be echoed in the upper portion of the peek-a-boo back and the sleeves as an overlay to the pattern pieces.  I basted them in place and just treated them as one piece. 

The shirt went together very well in spite of my worries about the lace slipping.

Heaven knows how my athletic, down-to-earth family wound up with a girly girl, but we’ve got one and it makes my Grandma heart so happy.  And you can see that she's pretty pleased with it herself!

Yes, this outfit is definitely over the top but it fulfills my granddaughter’s twirly girly dreams!

If you haven't already visited all of the amazing lace blogs, be sure to check them out!

   

Monday: Sewing Curves SewSophieLynn Kainara Stitches 

Tuesday: doodlenumber5 My Heart Will Sew On Third Shift Creations 

Wednesday: Princesse et tresors Phat Quarters 

Thursday: All Things Katy! Back40life,Sprouting JubeJube 

Friday: Sew Like a Sloth Very Blissful Seamly Behaviour