A Joint Effort

Inspired by the recent sewing efforts of Colette's daughters, I decided to get my daughter into a little project .... it ended up a joint effort - we made a sweet little drawstring dress to wear over swimmers up to the beach .... I drafted the pattern - front and back the same - and just traced a similar style dress she already had .....
I really like this Bernina clear foot - #34 - it's great for beginners to see exactly where they are sewing and they can use the middle red line to line up where to stitch - in this case I wanted her to sew along the top part of the overlocking ...
I attached some Satin Bias Binding around the armhole edges ....
We used some Cotton Herringbone Ribbon / Tape to thread through the casing at the top which then becomes the ties at the shoulders.
Fabric from the stash - Spotlight I think. Cool and happy - she was really impressed with how quickly this came together - about an hour all up - yes, a joint effort! Thanks Colette for the inspiration!
Now, recently my own motivation was definitely waning. I don't know why .... I'm on holidays .... nowhere to be .... nothing awaiting a deadline .... all the time in the world and a thousand projects just waiting to get off the ground. Yet I slumped into a pathetic and miserable nothingness - I was even watching Dr Phil and Judge Judy ...... eek!

Anyway, hopefully I've turned the corner and having done some sewing with Sweet Pea, I whipped up a little dress for moi! Firstly, as I was using a knit fabric, I wound some woolly nylon onto my bobbin. I learnt about this doing a workshop with Pam Kerr as part of the Australian Sewing Guild - are you a member? It's really worth looking into - the Guild is a treasure trove of knowledge and skills .... Anyway, the woolly nylon needs a little help to ensure that you don't wind it too tightly - you simply hold it in between the tension guides - you just manually adjust the tension - not really loose just not super tight ....
This is woolly nylon ....
Another thing I recently learnt about at the Palmer Pletsch Workshop I did was an overlocking thread by Mettler called Metrolene - it's super fine - just lovely - not bulky - you can hardly see it on your seam edges - but is still easy enough to thread and handle.

So, back to the dress. I made up another BWOF 04/08 116 Dress - this time I decreased the length of the front V neckline, as shown below - the red asterisk is where the new point is for end of the CF gathering, you can see the old asterisk in pencil. I also took out a small dart since I was gathering up a much larger piece.
I used this lovely fabric from Marting & Savage 94% Poly 6% Spandex.
And here it is, pictured at Bondi Beach (well, at the front car park). We went to Sydney to see Circus Oz - it was excellent - highly recommend it! As well, did you know CityRail has a Sunday special for families? Each member can travel all day for $2.50 each - bus, train and ferry - I think the area allowed is from Wollongong to the Hunter Valley - bargain!

I'm happy with the neckline alteration - this is a great dress. The last time I made this dress I forgot about the armhole binding piece and simply attached the sleeve and then did the underarm seam and side seam as one ... this time I made a point of putting in the sleeve as instructed - but no way! The sleeve was too large - a mystery to me - so I did the same as before and it's fine.
Psst .... have you entered my giveaway? Entries close this SUNDAY 24th January.