Anatomy images

Our little Elsa

 I know we are not alone with a Frozen obsession but lately our house has been ringing with the song 'Let it go' again and again and...

The other day a friend asked me to make her daughter an Elsa dress up for her birthday and I took it as a really good opportunity to make my daughter one too. I have been very much appreciated since and today has been spent twirling and leaping and singing... you get the picture.

I love how it turned out and so does she the only problem being I now have to call my daughter Elsa.

Here is my sweetie in action. Undershirt, powder blue sparkly dress and white sparkly cape. It is amazing how much time you can spend in a fabric show finding just the right combination to look right. I went for all knits for ease of fit. Together they are quite heavy which slightly worried me but since an all say concert has been performed in it I am sure I needlessly worried. I think she loved the drape and how it falls back into place after a spin and you can throw the cape in one direction and then it will swirl back in place.

So what did I do. I may have been tempted to buy a pattern for this but I could not find one that did not attach a skirt to a bodice and that wasn't the look I wanted so...

Step 1: I got Rae's Flashback Skinny Tee and made one out of a sheer white fabric.

Step 2: I measured my daughter from back neckline to ankle (I made 34 inches for size 6, this turned out a little to long as my fabric is quite heavy and has dropped a little after a hard days play). I then used the same pattern from step one and made it into a big rectangle that was 34 inches long.

Step 3: I then measured from underarm to where my daughters hips start and marked it at the side seam.

Step 4: At this point I drew a line at a 45 degree angle to create a 1/2 circle skirt and drew in a smooth curving line to join the bottoms.

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Step 5: Back at the top again I drew that shell shaped neckline. Follow the arm curve around and made the top curves 1 1/2 inches from the top of the original pattern, this was important for modesty as my white fabric was see through.

Then I cut this pattern piece on a fold.

Step 5: For the back a straight line starting at the under arm.

Then I cut this pattern piece on a fold.

Step 6: I did this step on the overlocker (serger). The two pieces of fabric pinned right sides together sewn down both side seams. Then hem the bottom once again I lazily just used a rolled hem on the overlocker and that is the blue dress finished.

Step 7: The cape. I used the back pattern piece and drew a long straight line from under the arm to the outside skirt point. Cut one on fold.

Step 8: Repeat step 7 but this time I only made it just wider than where the arm hole finished about 2 inches. Cut 2 reverse pieces.

Step 9: Pin the two front sections on the back at side seam a serge. And that is the cape finished with assembly the only thing still left.

Step 10: Next I pinned the cape to the cape starting at the side seams and then pinning the rest. I then sewed around the top of the cape with a three step zig zag so it would stretch.

Step 11: Finally I pinned the bodice onto the sheer t-shirt once again starting at the side seams. For the front I lifted it as high as I could smoothly make it sit to make sure we could have maximum modesty. And finally I used the three step zig zag again to secure them all together.

And that is how I made my Elsa dress. It only took me about 3 hours this lazy Saturday to make two of them and every one in this house is very happy and liable to break into song and dance at any moment and now it is time to 'let it go...' Talk to you next time.

The Greenback Wallet my style.

I been having some sewing withdrawals lately so I have been having a splurge on my sewing again. This is my version of the sew sweetness Greenback wallet. I have been living with a broken zipper in my wallet for months as a spur to get myself to make this and now I am very excited. This is the largest of the three options to I can fit cards, coins, notes and even my phone inside. 

I changed the original pattern to take away the accordion divider in the middle. Instead I made the coin pouch a little larger so it stretches across both sides and placed it over one of the credit card slots, sewing it around three sides. That made a slot for notes. I really like being able to open it flat everything is just so accessible. One change I will make if doing it again is I will put the card slots another 1/4 of an inch towards the center to be able to fully use the edge most card slots.

The school disco skirt

It is our school disco tonight and our house is becoming a hive of excitement. While the kids are away at school today I decided I was going to do some sewing to make it just that little bit more exciting when they get home. And I present to you my school disco skirt.

 I started off thinking that a full circle skirt would be great for all that spinning you need to do when you are still in kindergarten. Then I followed up that thought with the icing skirt that has been floating around in PDF world.

Now I don't actually have the pattern but was pretty sure I could work it out with a trusty roll of fishing line handy. I think it would technically have more layers of frills inside but I didn't want to go too over the top considering this was a spur of the moment fast sew. But oh look at that beautiful froth, it worked so sew beautifully. I can't wait for her to get home now. Patience is not one of my virtues. (I am finding it very difficult not telling my sisters what I have bought them for Christmas- why am I organised?)

I chose to go with butterflies as spring has just began here and it seemed topical as well as pretty. It is a very thin fabric so it takes on a bit of the orange from the frills beneath. I think there may be some more of these in the weeks to come as friends birthday presents.

My last one yard wonders post

Hi everyone, this is just a followup.

No new pictures...

About the giveaway I have been having.

Drum roll please

Congratulations go to Hilde De Budt who has won her own copy of the lovely Little One Yard Wonders. 

(I've sent you an email to get your details).

My copy arrived the other day and the excitement began again. I can't wait to have a break from work so I can get back into spending all my weekends and evenings sewing again. (There are a couple of projects I have my eye on).

Hope to talk to everyone again soon.
Bell

My little one yard wonder

Those of you who have been following me along on my sewing journey may remember a long, long time ago back in April 2012, that I submitted a pattern and it was accepted in a book called Little One Yard Wonders. Well it has been published. I have been rather excited even though I have not seen a copy yet (It's in the post). Here's a look at the cover.

It looks so lovely. I can't wait to see the real thing.

This is the sunsuit that I submitted. You can tell how time has flown by how big my little poppet has become now. I think I may have even gotten better at taking photos since then.

Even though I have not seen the book in person yet I have seen some photo's and I am allowed to share them. After I made up a sample and sent it off it was photographed by Julie Toy and here are a couple of photos that appear in the book (I'm indefinitely not that good at taking photo's):

 Here's my little shirred sunsuit. I am still proud of it. It was such a great concept I am thinking of making another one but maybe not for my little girl who is a bit on the old side now...

Here's the other beautiful photo. Oh it's good to see something come to fruition isn't it.

And so with much excitement I am going to run my first ever giveaway. If you want to win a copy of the book Little One Yard Wonders courtesy of Storey Publishing here goes...
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck
Bell

Fiji 3

Ages ago - last year some time I started to show you all the clothes that I made for Fiji but I never got through showing you all the lovely sewing. I have a reason for showing you now see this will be post 99 for me on my blog and I have something a little special for my 100th post...

Okay starting here with a go to signature dress. 

I adapted the sleeves from this tutorial. I love this dress as does my little one. Perfect for the beach. 

The one thing that I have against it is it looks too good. I don't know if you know what I mean by that... It looks like I could have bought it off the rack. That's good as in I know my sewing is as good as what I can buy. But the thing is what is then the point, the dress is not something that is individual that is designed just for my daughter and suits just her personality... 

We do love it though and will definitely make it again for over swimmers but maybe a new pattern and appliques. 

This dress on the other hand screams one off. It is all in the fabric mermaids swimming with whales- just the thing for a tropical escape. I wish I had some clearer photos to show you of our oliver + s Badminton dress. A beautiful pattern as all oliver + s patterns seem to be. Next summer I think I will make the top length in a floral...

The final thing I made for our trip was bags. A big effort but well worth it. Everyone got to choose fabric and I can for see them being used for many years into the future. This bag is Amy Butlers weekender and it was plenty big enough to fit all of the kids things in them for a full weeks stay with plenty of space left over. How pretty is this? The boys chose bugs in jars and Aliens and I love them all. I love that they so look like themselves.

Well I guess I will leave Fiji there, it is sad that it was almost a year ago now but the memories are still strong...


Bye bye Fiji.