WE DID IT

Thank you to all who helped!

A Sewing Bee (Sewing Love)

By now, many who read my blog will have heard of the devastating losses that have taken place in the southern US. It's very hard to fully understand the pain and grief all the families have had to face.

I have heard of two of the families, and know they are dear friends to a friend of mine. Please take a little time to read this information and join us in prayer for these families. Sewing Love

If you would like to be part of the "Sewing Love" we would dearly appreciate all the help.

Sewing for many people can be therapeutic. In a time of great loss, I would like to see these families be able to have time to focus in on their skills to help them work through their losses and their grief, as time allows for it. The sewing supplies become low on the priority of list of things needing replaced at times like these, which is understandable. We put our heads together and the Lord worked out this small way in which a sewing community could help. These families make many of the garments their family wears. In a very small way, we thought being able to help build up their sewing supplies would not only help in the healing process, but hopefully meet their families' needs.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Blessings to you,

Carol

Another Oliver + S Shirred Popover Sundress

I have been busy sewing various items for young girls. I have made another Oliver + S shirred popover sundress, 4 pairs of pantaloons and a swimdress. The swimdress is the only thing for Olivia. The other items will be gifted to other girls.





For the pantaloons, I used unbleached muslin and cotton lace. They are great for putting under dresses and skirts for little girls to play hard and keep them dressed modestly. ;) I like to use that pattern to pair up with the Girls' Regency Dress Pattern to make lovely pj sets, such as this old picture of Olivia in her Regency nightgown and pantloons, all made from flannel. :)



The shirred popover sundress is made from a quilting cotton and lined with unbleached muslin. I made the navy bias tape from a cotton twill fabric. I was able to perfect my shirring technique with this dress and I'm loving it! I was doubly pleased to find out I could shirr two fabrics together, allowing me to be able to line the dress beautifully! I see lots more shirred items in my future. They are wonderful for making garments more flexible in fit. I can see this being a great way to make garments for girls who are developing into young women.




I have several other items cut out and hopefully will be able to sew them up this week. I will add swimdress pictures just as soon as I get my model to put them on so I can snap some pictures. :) They were finished in time for her swim classes, but we haven't had time to take pictures. :)

Carol

Oliver + S Popover Sundress Shirred

Last year at sewing Expo, I took a class that gave me more hints and such to using shirring for dressmaking. You can see my first project HERE. I have several sketches of the Oliver + S Popover Sundress dancing in my head. One of those sketches was a shirred version of the dress. I have been searching for dress patterns that are quick to make, or that I can make into quick-making dresses for the ministry, Destiny Dresses. I want to make dresses that are beautiful, but also flexible in their fitting. I never know what little girl will get one of these dresses and I want it to work well for several shapes and sizes.

I apologize for the not so nice pictures. They were taken at 1:30 in the morning, before boxing them up and shipping them off, so not the best lighting or anything, but I hope you get the idea of what they look like.

Shirring seemed like a good idea for this dress pattern. I had to make changes to the pattern to make this possible. This is the first test run of the dresses and they appear to have worked well. Now I can sew up some of these dresses for the ministry. :) These dresses are going elsewhere. ;)

These three dresses are made from a nice cotton. I would have loved to make slips to go with these or lined them, but I ran out of time. I am still planning for some slips. I think I might try to see if shirring can be done with a double layer, but I have my doubts on that. It would be great if it worked. :)

The pattern is a free download that you can get HERE just get the PDF link and you can instantly download the pattern. The pattern has all kinds of possibilities. I hope some of you will give it a try, if you haven't already. :)

I will give more information on how to do the shirring, in a separate post.

Good-Night,

Carol