Showing posts with label girl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label girl. Show all posts

Saturday 16 August 2014

Pretty owls summer dress

Hello! Summer is not over yet, so I have taken the opportunity to sew another summer dress for Eva. Dresses have always been my favourite garments to design and sew.


It all started with two fabrics in mind - the pretty owl fabric from "Nested Owls" collection by Addornit (I wrote about it here) and the red mini polka-dot fabric by Sevenberry. I thought they would go well together so I started planning what I could turn them into. They both are 100% cotton and have a little a bit stiffness which is great for adding some volume to a garment.
For a week or so I couldn't decide on the style. I envisaged a little dress, coquette and with an interesting
detail.


For some reason my daughter didn't want to try the dress while still in the making. I would try to persuade her to wear it so I could do some measurements but she wouldn't try. What if she refused to wear the dress once it was all sewn up and ready. It would be a shame to have spent so much time designing, drafting, cutting and sewing something that could never be worn.







Luckily, once the dress was completed, washed and ironed, she willingly let me dress her in it. I was more than happy as believe it or not that little girl could be very stubborn and picky.


To make the dress hang nicely I opted for a decorative finish of the hemline. That was the best I could achieve with my mum's sewing machine (which to put it mildly could be unmanageable at times).


I used snaps to close the side of the dress. They are so practical and easy to sew that I wonder why I haven't used any before. For me one of the most important things to consider when sewing for the kids is the easy wearing of the garment. Because if wearing is complicated, kids quickly get annoyed and they might never want to wear that garment again. I remember when a few years ago my boy couldn't take one of his jumpers off and got panicked so I had to cut through it. After that for a period of time, he was scared everytime he was wearing something through his head.

Tuesday 15 April 2014

Making a sunhat for a first time


Being in a warm and sunny place where sunshine is not luxury has inspired me to sew my first sunhat for Eva.
Two weeks ago I was looking for sunhats for my children. I came across this lovely girl's hat in Asda, but there were only large sizes left.


 I grabbed one with the intention to use it as a model for constructing a similar one which would fit my little girl's head.
It's definitely not a difficult thing to make, but maybe because it was the first time I made a hat, I could see that I had made a few mistakes, luckily not so noticeable.
These are the two tester hats I made. I made this one first


then tried adding some flares and that was the result




I decided to use the flared shape for her sunhat, as it looked more girly. Now I think that I might use the first shape to make a hat for my boy as well.
My fabric choice for the hat would be something neutral, like the one from Asda, which would match most of the clothes. I went to two local fabric shops to hunt some fabric, but priced at 15-18 euros/ metre seemed two much, so I went back home and looked again at the very few fabrics I had kept at my parents home. Finally I picked the one with blue flowers, although it wasn't neutral (If you have been following the blog you would have seen this fabric before here and here)