Saturday, March 13, 2010

Old Fabric, New Dress

My friend Christa decided a few months ago that she wanted to learn how to smock, so she asked me if I would help her in that task.  We set up a time to meet and she brought fabric for her project.
I have hundreds of patterns in various magazines and books that I've accumulated over the last 20 or so years, so I had chosen some simple ones to have her start her first project. Truth be told smocking is a very easy form of stitching, far easier than most embroidery or other handiwork. I think if I had to compare it to something else that had the same scale of difficulty, I'd have to say cross stitch. Yes, cross stitching is about as hard as smocking, and that is pretty easy.
After our first session/lesson she went home and finished the hand smocking portion of her project and then we met back at my house a month later with our sewing machines for a lesson in dress construction.
I will post my friends finished project later on when I get a picture of it, but for now I'm going to show you what I made alongside her as I was showing her how it is done.
The solidish pink fabric is the smocked section of the dress. I did some simple waves in the same light pink tone, and some accents in the brighter pink and blues that are in the body of the dress fabric.
The bow up on top will be for the little girls (Lena's) hair, and I made matching ones for socks if her mom wants them. I made some for baby socks a couple weeks ago, and although they might be too much for some people, I really think they are cute, so I made some more.
Here is the finished size 2 dress laid out on my couch. The little sleeve caps are in the "Angel" style, because I honestly ran out of fabric for the sleeves. They'll still be cute.
Oh, I didn't tell about this fabric. I bought it to make a quilt for my DIL before she was married. I think the main fabric for the dress was supposed to be the back of the quilt that would not be seen much. There are a couple of other small pieces of matching fabrics that go with it too, but I think it turned out nice as a dress. And ... already paid for is a pretty good price.
The hem is done with a contrasting fabric in Madeira Applique. Nice finishing touch.
The dress from the back  with The Hubby making adjustments for me. He is my photography cheerleader.

3 comments:

  1. What an adorable dress, and I do love the fabric. I'll bet your hubby is proud of what you can do with a needle and thread. It's pretty amazing.

    =)

    ReplyDelete
  2. this dress is soo cute!!! you know i love it solely for the colors in it but i love the pattern you used too!! looks good mama!

    ReplyDelete