With a birthday party to go to I had to make Zoe a dress to suit the theme - princesses. There's this great shop in Silverdale called "the fairy shop" loaded with dresses and wings and flowers etc. I don't go in very often - in fact I've probably been in twice and considering I park next to it to go to the Hospice Shop or the $2 shop that's a big effort not to go in. It's too expensive but my two visits gave me a few ideas and I dragged out a couple of patterns to combine and alter. This is what I came up with...
It kind of just flowed out of me. First I had one dress pattern for a party frock. I adjusted the bodice from that to make one with an insert and lacings. I found the gold ribbon while I was rummaging through stash and decided to use that along with the velvet ribbon lacing. The actual velvet was a fluke - my stepmum gave it to me a few weeks ago. It was EXACTLY what I was after and she hadn't even known I was making this. Zoe spotted the sequin fabric in my stash and wanted it so I HAD to incorporate that. The sleeves came from another party dress pattern that I'm never actually going to make and that gold ribbon just kept on filling the gaps. I based the skirt on the overskirt of the first pattern - but only as far as size was concerned as I joined the three different materials together - and even then it got way, way wider than I needed. I HATE hemming so imagine my joy when I found this lace in stash that made the perfect edging meaning I didn't have to spend hours folding, pinning, ironing etc. When Zoe first tried it on it was way too long so I knew I'd have to hoist the ruffles a bit so this morning I simply doubled them over and sewed more ribbons and these cute little dragonflies from The Warehouse scrapbooking section to each scallop.
Even the underskirt was an achievement in using up stash - an unfinished skirt made for an older friend of Zoe's. One of two - I made the other one up for Zoe a while back - it provided a good base on which to sew the tulle. I did buy $10 of that but I also rummaged in stash and came up with a bit more purple and some gold which is perfect for the underlining at the back where it can be seen through the scallops.
And this is what my little princess looked like in it today...
And here's my admission - it's really badly sewn!!!!! It was such a rush job (basically somebody let me down with pattern lending and I fell back on my initial plan - looks so much better in my opinion anyway) which I started in Saturday. The zip is far from perfect, the inside seams are atrocious and not finished off (although I sewed them with an overlock stitch so shouldn't fray too much). The petticoat/underskirt is a joke with it's four differnt coloured tulles sewn haphazardly - even the casing for the elastic waist is terrible - BUT it's a dress-up and Zoe loves it and I'm happy. It looked really good on and it's not a ball gown - it's a dress up. What I'm mostly proud of is that all except the $10 of tulle came out of my stash - a great way to bust it down.
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