red polka dot dress....#2

in having about a yard and a half left of the red polka dot fabric I decided to make my niece her own dress. she really liked my dress when I showed it to her, so I made hers close to mine but with a few differences. first of all no pleats. I wanted to makes something that was a bit more simple. pleats take a while to get just right. and I didn’t want to do a gathered skirt for no other reason then I just didn’t want too. I opted to do a circle skirt because they twirl so well! and twirling is of the utmost importance when your seven. (or even at my age really.) plus a circle skirt is really easy. I attached it to a bodice from one of my patterns. and yea I had a dress.


but was it really that simple? no not really. the dress it self was rather simple, and putting to stripes on the skirt was easy. but putting the stripes on the bodice was a whole other matter. I had to put them on in just the right order so as to have them lay the way I wanted. which was to have the stripe on the straps placed under the stripes going across the bodice. which meant I had to put them on first. except one problem putting them on first sewed down the inside facings. and I needed the edges of the bodice stripes to be on the inside of the seams, which meant I had to attach them first. otherwise I couldn’t get the stripes under the facing and even though no one will really see the inside of the dress other then me. my niece and her mother I couldn’t stand the thoughts of the stripes simply over lapping the facings and showing on the inside. so I very carefully measured attaching the ends of the facings on the bodice stripes then put on the strap stripes, and then finally secured the bodice stripes that went across.

originally I was only going to put one stripe across the bodice like mine has, but my niece asked for two. she also asked for four on the skirt. I gave in to the ones on the bodice, but told her she was out of luck on the skirt. the reason I gave her was I didn’t have enough bias strip, which was true, but I also thought four stripes might be a bit much on such a small dress. I also did the bows a bit differently on her dress, making the “ribbons” hang down as apposed to be straight across as mine are. I also only gave her the two in the front cause I am lazy like that. she was so excited when I gave her the dress, twirling and telling me she loved it.
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brave pillow sham

I randomly had this thought that I never did post the pillow sham I made my sister for Christmas. so here it is! and only what, five months late? yep is brave themed. with brave fabric in the center, solid blue around for the border and blue ribbon to tie in the seams and . the back is solid red. the red and the blue were from my stash. I don’t really remember a whole lot about making it other then I’m not the best at mitered corners and that frustrated me. I really need to work on improving that.

it was cute though when she opened it and was all surprised about the fabric because I bought it with her there. trying to do the sneaky thing where I put it under the other fabric I was buying. but I was sure she had seen it since the checkout lady didn’t know to not let my sister see it. and I couldn’t say anything to her without drawing attention to the fabric. but somehow it was still a surprise and that made me happy.


I should have pressed the sham though and put a pillow in it for the pictures but I didn’t think of it at the time. since I did take the pictures months ago.