Plum Ruffled with Penny by ModKid

Penny by ModKid 

This cute and comfy dress is a result of wonderful finds at the International Quilt Festival in Houston this year.  I bought the heathered plum double knit fabric at Vogue Fabrics and the ruffle knit fabric at Sew It Up.  They went together beautifully!!!

I used the simple dress, Penny, from ModKids to make this trendy outfit.  The sleeves and hemline were cut short and I added three rows of ruffle fabric to make a ruffled "statement."  Sewing three rows of ruffle knit together was a little insane.  I found it easiest to zig-zag the seams together on the knit.

Back view of Penny by ModKid

For those of you who would like to copy, I would cut the ruffle of the sleeves to 2 rows of green and blue, but keep 3 rows of purple.  I would also add a fourth row of purple on the hemline.  It seams the bottom row tends to turn under and the added row would be great for the visual look of the outfit.

Happy New Year!!!

Christmas Dress, Butterick B5523

Butterick B5523

 My Christmas dress this year is COMFY!  I used a rayon ponte double knit in Christmas red and Butterick B5523 to make a perfectly comfy and cute dress.  A few reviews on PatternReview mentioned the bust was "snug."  I did a FBA and almost went up a size due to the knit not being super stretchy.  I came back down to my original size and whipped up the dress in 48 hours for a Christmas party.  My only changes are the FBA and I used my coverstitch machine on the hems.  A note for others about the pleats:  it takes a firm fabric to hold the pleats, but the pleats are shallow and would hold a better pleat if they were deeper....

Butterick B5523

Merry Christmas!

Whimsy Christmas Dress

Christmas Dress from More Sewing with Whimsy.

This year's Christmas dress is from Kari Mecca's "More Sewing with Whimsy."  I used the round yoke dress, "Confetti Rainbow."  This is a simple pull-over-head dress pattern.  The hardest part is making sure the yoke is centered.  The green, red and white fabric is from my stash, but I think it is a Nashville Cotton's print.  This year I asked my daughter what type of dress she wanted. I let her pick from dressy,  casual, classic, or a mix.  She decided on a classic dress, but with something fun.  I think I found a great match and I used up some fabric from my stash!

Close-up of whimsy stick roses.

I used Whimsy Sticks to make the double loop roses.  These are easy to make and look absolutely wonderful.

Round Yoke Whimsy Dress & Jessica AG Dress pattern

My skinny daughter had a VERY tough time holding that satin ribbon belt in place.  I had added belt loops to the sides, but that didn't help at all.  I finally decided to safety pin the bow to the dress and NOW it stays in place.

Silly girl coming out in the pictures.

Rebecca, the American Girl doll, got to attend my daughter's literature club Christmas party.  It would have been simple to draft a dress for the doll, but I found a pattern at Gennie Wren's Etsy shop that was a great match.  It is called "Jessica," round yoke dress for 18" dolls.  It was easy to match the girl's dress as I constructed the doll dress.  I used smaller Whimsy Sticks and made double loop roses.

Jessica Round Yoke Dress from Gennie Wren.

Close-up of whimsy roses on Rebecca's dress.

Rebecca in her Christmas dress.

Next month, the American Girl doll is Kirsten.  I already have a few ideas in mind........

I'm in print!!!!

Smocked Cupcakes

I can hardly believe this little pattern is ready and available at the SAGA website under SAGA Stitches.  I spent a good deal of time writing, rewriting, and photographing these little cuties this year.  This SAGA Stitches program was done to try to hook another generation into my passion of smocking and sewing.  Since the "cake" part of the cupcake can be done anyway you like, it is easy to adapt it to any new stitch you would like to learn.  For beginners, the cupcake is only about a "fat quarter" wide to make it fast.

Let me know if you make one!!