About Me

South Louisiana
I have been married for 20 years to a great husband and we have 8 children ranging in age from 1 to 18 years. I am a homeschooling mom, which can be very challenging. I love sewing, knitting, reading, gardening and have recently started oil painting. I love to create. I really want to have a blog to show off some of the stuff I create, but I also want to share about my life and family. email me at ctrich8@bellsouth.net

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Ginger Blossom dress for Ava

Sunday afternoon, after I finished my top, I cut out a dress for Ava. I used one of the new Ginger Blossom fabrics. I think it came out really cute. It is a fairly easy pattern. I thought about putting a pale yellow ric rac around the edges, but decided not to. I may change my mind later and add it anyway.

I used a different technique for gathering the skirt. I can't remember where I read about using dental floss, but I have been wanting to try it. Basically, you take a length of dental floss and zigzag over it where you want to gather. The first time, the zigzag was too wide and too long. This made it to where the fabric wouldn't stay gathered. So, I shortened the length to 1.0 and the width to 4.5 and it was perfect. I guess because the floss is slick, the fabric gathered extremely easily and quickly. It was awesome, I usually HATE to gather fabric because it can be time consuming and you have to be careful to not break those darn threads. This was a breeze! From now on, when I have a large piece of fabric to gather, I will be using this technique. I gathered the sleeves the usual way because they were so small and the two rows of stitching gives you a little more control. In the picture, I hadn't shortened my length and width yet, so your zigzags should be closer together.



The dress fits really well, I made a size 2. Here she is modeling it. She was in rare form this morning. I did have to give her a Rice Krispie treat, but as soon as she had it in her hot little hands, she was posing all over the place LOL



Please excuse the mess in the yard and my horribly unkept flower beds : )






She dropped her half eaten rice krispie treat in the grass, so here she is getting a new one in the kitchen.



Oh, and I used two vintage buttons that I got on my St. Francisville trip. They matched the yellow in the fabric perfectly. I love old buttons.


13 comments:

beki said...

It's adorable! Now I'm really itching to sew some things for my Ava. All the fabric has been washed - it's time for me to get busy!!

Trish said...

Oh! Super Cute! To have a little girl to sew dresses for :)

I've never heard of the dental floss trick! Thanks for sharing it!

Marie said...

Ava's dress turned out adorable! I love those 2 fabrics paired together and she looked so adorable modeling it. I've heard of the dental floss trick and completely forgot to try it! It would have helped with the dresses I recently made since I had to gather those ruffles-all 112 inches of it-not fun! Thanks for the reminder and for sharing!

Tine said...

Aaaawwwww! How cute is she!!!
The dress is adorable, I like that fabric a lot :-)

Thanks for sharing the dental floss trick, I'll try that on Viola's next tiered skirt!

lera said...

Such a sweet little dress.

Kelci said...

So cute! And great tip on the dental floss-I definitely need to try that. Would you mind sharing the pattern info? I'd love to make this dress for my older daughter-looks like it might be twirly enough for her taste-and I just learned how to do a button hole:)

Tonya said...

Thanks everyone : ) Kelci, the pattern is Simplicity 3511, I think I did view D. It's pretty twirly LOL

Butterflygirl said...

Oh...I miss the 'little' day and making my girls the pretty dresses and outfits! The dress is gorgeous! It is so funny...I forgot all about the floss trick too! I've used it before, I think I used it when I made my cousins wedding dress...big help!! I am so glad you mentioned it...how do we forget these things??? Especially when they make things a little smoother!

Tonya said...

Wow, you made a wedding dress? I am impressed : )

I have known about this floss trick forever, I don't know why I waited so long to try it. I guess we get stuck in our ways LOL

randi said...

So cute! I just love the Ginger Blossom line of fabrics!

Holly said...

Hey! That's super cute!!! What pattern did you use? I am going to try that dental floss trick... I HATE gathering by hand, but my math skills don't allow me to use my "ruffler ratios" correctly!

Holly said...

Sorry, I never read other's comments... Thanks for the pattern info...!

Jona Giammalva said...

Oh goodie!! I have that pattern already and now that it's gotten a good review (and it's darling!) I can try it!!
That dental floss trick is going on my list of brilliant things to try. Gathering can be such a pain.