Project52 - 52 Crafts in 52 Weeks: Sew Happy

This week I felt like sewing something. I usually don't know what until I start looking through my patterns. I decided on a cute summery dress by Simplicity. Then I started looking at fabric...that can be daunting because I am a bit of a fabric hoarder and I have a lot to choose from! I ended choosing a beige floral and a medium denim. I wanted to make a hybrid dress from views A and B. A is all one color and sleeveless, B has two fabrics with sleeves. I decided to make the sleeveless version, but with two fabrics, the beige for the dress body and the denim for the yoke and bottom panel.

Next I cut out the appropriate pattern pieces

Pinned them to the fabric and cut them all out. This is my least favorite part of sewing but, thankfully, this pattern didn't have to many pieces!

Following the pattern directions VERY carefully (I usually mess something up and have to rip out stitches) I started sewing

I'll spare you all the boring details since sewing directions aren't very exciting, but, basically I sewed the dress sides together, sewed the yoke pieces together and sewed them to the dress and then sewed the band onto the bottom. This was an easy dress because there were no zippers or buttonholes!

Once the yoke was finished I added some cute white jewel buttons.

This was the easiest thing I've sewn in a long time and I didn't use my seam ripper once! When I tried the dress on before adding the denim panel on the bottom it was waaay to short but with the denim it hits me just above the knee. I plan to wear it with a white cardigan sweater while the weather is still cool. To tie the dress in with what ever I wear over it, I decided to make a fabric pin.

Using my Sizzix die cutting machine and a flower die made it really easy.

First I layered my fabric over the die, then added the cutting mat on top and rolled it through the cutter. There are blades in the die that make the cut once pressure is applied, it is really pretty cool how they come out so perfectly!