So I haven't posted SINCE MAY. As my six year old son would say: "what the...?"
I did go away to Greece and the UK for a while but tbh, that was only 3.5 weeks of this time! Anyway - no apologies, straight back into it with some catch up posts.
When we got back from our trip, I realised that the dreaded book week was nearly upon us. I really loathe book week, mostly because I usually don't remember about it until it's upon us, but also because as a parent who can sew I feel a totally ridiculous (and largely self-imposed) pressure to sew something for it!
This time I was fairly organised and this is the result - Darcy from the Magic Ballerina books:
I made the dress and we had some fun painting the shoes to be the special red, magic ballerina shoes.
We used fabric paint from Spotlight and then I sewed some red elastic for the "ribbons". I didn't want to use actual ribbons, as they would probably fall down all the time. The elastic worked a treat.
The dress was made by tracing a top she already had:
and making some binding from the same fabric to cover the raw edges and make the straps. This method worked really really well and was ridiculously fast. The bodice is a nice, stable knit which was super easy to sew.
I then cut a two layer circle skirt (or indeed, two circle skirts of different fabric) to attach to it. Layer 1 was a slippery pale purple satin stuff (a total nightmare to cut out!) and layer 2 was a shimmery see through crystal organza-type of fabric. Also a total nightmare to cut out.
It looks like this isn't a proper circle skirt in this picture, but I promise it is!!!
I made the hole in the middle to be more than the circumference of her waist by "a fair bit" (yes, highly technical methodology here!). The idea is that you need enough width to allow the top to stretch without popping the stitches on the skirt.
I basted the two layers together by machine, then attached the skirts to the bodice via overlocker. You basically mark the quarter points of the waist and of where you want to attach it on the bodice. The skirt should be bigger than the top. Then you stretch the top to match. Sew on (overlock on, whatever). The top will return to shape (note - your jersey should have reasonable recovery..) and create the very loose gathers in the skirt.
I didn't hem the skirts, but I did trim the inner skirt to be a bit shorter than the outer skirt - which looked nice. The organza stuff frayed a bit too much over the day, so I am going to have to go back and hem that sometime as she likes the dress and wants to keep it.
And there was the joy of hand sewing sequins on the bodice and in areas of the skirt:
I tried glueing but too many fell off. I would recommend glueing, then sewing in place if you have time - it's actually a lot quicker if you do the placement up front, then return to secure it.
So that's another book week achieved - I quite liked this one and was pleased to be able to just make something up which looked quite similar to the character.
Ciao for now...
I did go away to Greece and the UK for a while but tbh, that was only 3.5 weeks of this time! Anyway - no apologies, straight back into it with some catch up posts.
When we got back from our trip, I realised that the dreaded book week was nearly upon us. I really loathe book week, mostly because I usually don't remember about it until it's upon us, but also because as a parent who can sew I feel a totally ridiculous (and largely self-imposed) pressure to sew something for it!
This time I was fairly organised and this is the result - Darcy from the Magic Ballerina books:
 |
| Sorry it's blurred...I didn't realise until now! |
We used fabric paint from Spotlight and then I sewed some red elastic for the "ribbons". I didn't want to use actual ribbons, as they would probably fall down all the time. The elastic worked a treat.
The dress was made by tracing a top she already had:
and making some binding from the same fabric to cover the raw edges and make the straps. This method worked really really well and was ridiculously fast. The bodice is a nice, stable knit which was super easy to sew.
I then cut a two layer circle skirt (or indeed, two circle skirts of different fabric) to attach to it. Layer 1 was a slippery pale purple satin stuff (a total nightmare to cut out!) and layer 2 was a shimmery see through crystal organza-type of fabric. Also a total nightmare to cut out.
It looks like this isn't a proper circle skirt in this picture, but I promise it is!!!
I made the hole in the middle to be more than the circumference of her waist by "a fair bit" (yes, highly technical methodology here!). The idea is that you need enough width to allow the top to stretch without popping the stitches on the skirt.
I basted the two layers together by machine, then attached the skirts to the bodice via overlocker. You basically mark the quarter points of the waist and of where you want to attach it on the bodice. The skirt should be bigger than the top. Then you stretch the top to match. Sew on (overlock on, whatever). The top will return to shape (note - your jersey should have reasonable recovery..) and create the very loose gathers in the skirt.
 |
| basting the skirt layers - how awesome does the iridescence of the organza look??? |
And there was the joy of hand sewing sequins on the bodice and in areas of the skirt:
I tried glueing but too many fell off. I would recommend glueing, then sewing in place if you have time - it's actually a lot quicker if you do the placement up front, then return to secure it.
So that's another book week achieved - I quite liked this one and was pleased to be able to just make something up which looked quite similar to the character.
Ciao for now...
Stop it! She looks great naturally :) You have put me to shame - my kid went in a cat onesie and a red and white hat (cat in the hat) last minute job this year. Sewing has been thin on the ground around these parts, feeling like a complete slacker, but glad to see you have the foot to the pedal!
ReplyDelete