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Tuesday, 14 January 2014

Sewing Christmas Gifts - Given and Received

I only managed to do a little Christmas Sewing this season: a couple of dresses for my gorgeous Granddaughters.


I used the Madeline Dress pattern by Wink Designs, previously blogged about here. The fabric was purchased online from Spotlight. It comes from the 'Lisette' USA Cotton Collection. I was very disappointed when the fabric arrived as the floral fabric was an almost sheer cotton lawn and the contrast green fabric was more like a quilting cotton. Spotlight failed to clarify this in their catalogue where the fabrics were described as if they were all the same 100% cotton. To overcome this, I lined the bodice and the skirt with white polycotton which brought out the colours much better. So despite the fabric issues, I was quite pleased with how the dresses turned out.

Bodice details
I bought the cute little flower shaped buttons on another trip to Spotlight. I cut the blue dress at size 3 bodice with the skirt length at size 4, and the pink dress was size 1 with size 2 length for the skirt. 

The girls wore their new dresses on an outing to the animal farm last weekend, and my son took lots of photos. Here is a collage of them all.

Such little cuties.
I was also spoilt at Christmas with lots of new sewing related gifts. I had dropped lots of hints and this is what I got:


More Fabric Savvy by Sandra Betzina which has loads of info about all sorts of different fabrics and will be a very useful resource; A sleeve Board and a Point Presser and Tailor's Clapper which came from Judis Studio here in Australia; 110 Creations A Sewists Notebook which will be a great help in planning my sewing projects. A $50 Gift Voucher for Style Arc Patterns which came with the free pattern for December - the Lu Lu Tunic; Three Craftsy Classes - Sew Better Sew Faster Garment Industry Secrets40 Techniques Every Sewer Should Know, and Underneath It All. Lots of learning to do here; and some professional quality dressmaking scissors KAI 7250. The scissors are really high quality and are very luxurious to use. These have been hidden deep in my sewing desk, away from the reaches of other household members. I have scattered several decoys around...all useless for cutting fabric.

Thanks to my wonderful family, I have lots of new sewing resources and equipment that will be sure to improve my sewing skills. Looking forward to a great sewing year ahead.

Happy Sewing

11 comments:

  1. Those dresses are so beautiful! The fabric is gorgeous: both the prints and the colors. Lovely job.

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    1. Thanks Meigan. It was a bit of a mad rush to get them finished in time for Christmas, but seeing my Granddaughters wearing them gives me much pleasure.

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  2. Such cute dresses on adorable girls! Great sewing gifts - enjoy them all!

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    1. Thank you Linda T. I think they are adorable girls (but I might be biased). I'm sure I will be enjoying all my Christmas gifts for a long while to come.

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  3. Gorgeous dresses and what a wonderful gift for a sewist

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    1. Thanks BeaJay. It certainly pays to drop some big hints leading up to Christmas.

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  4. How gorgeous are both your dress and your little gals. Beautiful. Cheers, Karen

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  5. Your granddaughters look so pretty in their dresses! And what nice gifts you received! Let us know how you like that notebook. I am thinking about getting one myself.

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    1. Thank you Angela. I'll let you know about the notebook. I'm thinking of using it to plan a work wardrobe capsule.

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  6. I'm sorry you were disappointed in the fabric - but the dresses turned out really beautiful.

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