Baby dedication dress with an African twist.

Hi Readers

Last month I was asked if I’d be able to make a dress for a little girl who was being dedicated to the Lord.  As I love children and pretty dresses I wasn’t going to turn down the task and was honored to make this little princess in an Elasha Creations dress for her special day.

The dress was made in a lilac satin with a crystallized organza overlay on the skirt trimmed with an African print on the cuffs for the belt and fabric flowers.

The flowers were made from long strips of the print double and a gathering stitch sewn along it using my gathering foot. The gathers were pulled as tight as possible and the raw edge overlocked.  The strip was then curled and hand sewn.

The dress was finished off with a pair of shoes (which I blogged about earlier) see here.

The Little princess looked so cute on her day.  God bless you hunni.

 

Baby Shoes

Hi Readers

This ones for all the lickle bubbies who luuuuve shoes.

I completed a dress for a baby dedication this weekend.  I’ll blog about it later, but in the mean time, I decided I’d bless the little darling with a new pair of shoes to go perfectly with her dress.  Considering I’ve only ever decorated shoes, I wasn’t quite sure how they would turn out.  But these are sooo cute.  Here they are.

How Cute are these!!!!

Here’s how I made them. I’d saved a pattern from craftsy.com a while back which I thought was perfect for what I wanted, so printed it off. Only thing is I forgot to get the method of how they were put together!!  I gave it a go anyhow.made up of

The shoes are made up from 3 pattern pieces.  The sole, the toe cap and the strap.

All pieces were cut 2 fabric, 2 lining 2 interlining and 2 wadding.  Except for the strap.  That was cut in the face fabric only.

All lining pieces were fused. The straps were made adding a small piece of velcro for fastening to the end of the strap and the straight of the top cap.  The straps were then sandwiched in between the fabric, wadding  and fused lining on the inner edge.  The curved was snipped and the seam stay stitched.

Press stay stitched curve.  Sew the heal right side to right side fabric and lining.

I layered the sole pieces together and stitched it together

Overlocked the edge and turned to right side

 

Love the finished shoe.  Great for any little girl to finish of her outfit.

Thanks for stopping by.

Nichole.x

 

Simplicity Blog Meet

This week I took a trip into London Westend for the Simplicity Blog meet, (the 1st of many I hope), I met some fellow bloggers and sewers and it was great to share.

May Martin from the Sewing Bee was demonstrating live after which I was encouraged to buy 2 new machine feet for my class.  It was lovely meeting May.  A passionate lady just wanting to share her knowledge of sewing. She had a list of patterns that she had picked out as her favourite, available here, pictured below, and talked about the Amazing Fit patterns explaining the difference in them having more seam allowance on the side seams for fit adjustments.

Simplicity gave us blogger star treatment with refreshments a goody bag and a table full of patterns to giveaway.  Needless to say I came home with loads of ideas for new projects.  I just don’t know when I’m going to fit them all in!!

Let me know if you’ve got any projects lined up and what they are.x

Carnival tradition

Today on the blog is the carnival costume (outfit) I was asked to make for Nottinghill carnival.
It’s not the usual costume being a jacket and shorts. The cloth is traditional Dominican colourful check in 100% cotton,  sent all the way from Dominica. This unlined jacket with checks matched as best I could fitted the client with enough room for the movement need at carnival.  The fly front shorts also seemed to have the check run in line with the jacket. Result!!! All in all not the usual for carnival but I really liked the results. Something the client plans to wear again and again.

The Co-ordinated Family

Hi Readers.

Hope your all having a good weekend. Last Saturday I decided to make myself a gathered skirt from the stash that I really need to sort out.  A green and blue African print was selected and cut freehand, just needed the length and waist measurement.  These skirts are very quick and easy to make and super comfy to wear. once finished and seeing how much fabric was left my girls came to mind. They should have matching dresses too.  So one got a party shaped dress which is what she loves to twirl in and the other being a bit older had a high low dress with elasticated waist. Oh and don’t forget the head wrap. A Girls gotta have a head wrap.

Love the way the print landed round the neckline

The twirl, with a leap.

Hotel Dinner Dress.

Happy Sunday

This week on the blog I want to show you some refashioning that was done on this lovely print dress. Not something that I usually do but it was for a friend.

The original dress at first glance is lovely but on closer inspection Huuuum!! No boning, front v notch uneven, not central and generally the dress didn’t fit, hence its on the dummy!! So I was called to see if I could rescue it as my friend had an invitation to a 16th anniversary celebration of a Ghanaian king. Ooooh get you!!

I literally took the dress apart. Good job the seam allowances were like 5inches. Added boning for structure and some curves for the bust, waist and hips.  To level off the front notch I had to make it a little wider.  Added some straps for a halterneck and a layer of netting under the hem of the skirt. Tapered in the skirt at the lower thigh into the knees, and we had a revised look. Now the dress was wearable and not likely to fall down! Ooops!!

Not the clearest of photos, Sorry. This is dress before reworked

 

High Low Cotton Print tee and Harem pants.

Hi Readers. Happy Sunday

Last weekend I went on a fabric hunt and saw this lovely cotton print in navy with little shades of peach and purple flowers, that I thought my daughter would like, so of course I bought it, along with some other prints. I layed out all the prints and asked her to choose one. Yessss!! the one I had in mind for her is the one she chose.  This week we put together a high low top and some harem type trousers.

She loved them so much she wouldn’t take it off when I tried the finished outfit on her. Especially when I ran up the little hair tie.