Wednesday, April 15, 2009

sewing for my sweet girl

For as long as she'll wear my dresses, I'm going to make them. I derive such joy from creating clothing for her and then seeing her wear my work. I love that she comes to me and says, "mama, can you make me an owl skirt... a dolphin shirt... a dress with flowers and bees?"

This is the Claire pattern by Sandi Henderson in her Portabellopixie line. It was such fun to put together, and contains four different styles within the pattern. This one is a little biased towards serger use. I happen to have my mom's, so I'm lucky. It calls for a rolled hem, but you can substitute a regular hem at the neck, cuffs, and bottom with more work (thus, skipping the serger.)

It also utilizes elastic thread, but don't be deterred. It's easier than it looks. On this pattern, I learned how to gather on my serger... way easier than doing it on a regular machine. There's a peasant top version in this same style, just shorter. That's next on my list for her.

My last little bit of advice would be to figure out length before you put on the gathered ruffle at the bottom. I like her dresses to be short enough that she can run, and this one's a little more restrictive in terms of fullness and length. Otherwise, I'm thrilled with the pattern and will get plenty more use from it as the sizing goes from infant to 8 years.



2 comments:

Melissa said...

Those are beautiful-- lucky girl. And lucky mama to have a willing child to dress!

Anonymous said...

Wow! Those dresses are fabulous. I particularly love the own fabric because we have a thing for owls in my family.