Spotty Dress

Since my sewing machine arrived a couple of months ago, I’ve only sewn ‘easy’ things like a flannel/minky blanket, pair of shorts for bubba and some new strap covers for his pram – this has been due to a lack of material in my stash & not knowing where to buy material here in Tbilisi. So it has really been since November last year (when we moved from Melbourne) that I have sewn anything finicky, you know, those type of projects you actually need to really concentrate for… and my toddler was only just 12 months old then and was a lot less mobile and inquisitive than he is now!

It was sooooo much easier sewing when I could strap him in a little bouncer chair and give him a toy, or pop him in his gated playroom right next to the kitchen table and sew!  I am finding that managing sewing time with looking-after-a-toddler time is a lot more difficult! Especially since I’ve gotten my sew-jo back, have some cool materials, and have so many awesome ideas in my head…. but my little man has other ideas. He thinks its hilarious to sit on my fabric when I’m trying to cut a pattern. Or run up and slide on it just as I’m trying to line it all up properly. He also thinks its hilarious to sit under the desk and try and run off with the foot pedal…. or when I’m not looking, gets up on my chair and tries to grab the thread off my overlocker — And after having to rethread it about 5 times last month when it was playing up, that almost gave me a heart attack… Picture a slow motion “nooooooooo” while lunging at him from across the room!

Anyway, as we haven’t yet bought a printer, I haven’t find any shops here with paper patterns, and really don’t want to ask my husband to print out a few 40 page patterns at work, I picked out a simple style dress in my cupboard (that I bought in 2008!!) that is a nice fit and thought I’d use as a template – as I’ve been DYING to sew something for me!!

I used some blue & white spot dress material that I bought at the market on Monday, honestly I have no idea what kind of fabric this is, as the selvedge doesn’t have anything printed on it and I don’t know fabric types well enough to say….  (Now I’ll be on a mission to find out the name of this fabric!)

I unfortunately cut the neckline a little too wide and lets call the sleeves “fitted” to put it nicely… but this was a great project to learn a few new techniques, like using facings on the neckline and sleeve openings, and shirring the waist instead of using elastic (like in the dress I was using as a template). I have never shirred before, but thanks to an awesome tutorial that I found by Pretty Ditty (here) I got it FIRST GO!

Very impressed with myself. Unfortunately I didn’t have any thread to match the material and was sewing this late at night so made do with the best I could find!! I have now got some dark blue thread so can use that to hem the dress tonight!

Actually after I made the dress and looked at it hanging up, it is a little similar in style to the April Rhodes Staple Dress that I talked about in my last post & want to make (properly, with a pattern – I’m sure it would turn out better!)

Ok, off to hem this dress and have a think about what next to sew… any ideas for sheer printed fabrics until my fabric.com order arrives?!!