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.