5 Little Dresses

Remember when I told you about finding an amazing place for fabric right here in Lumberton, NC? Here is some of what I found at http://www.t-tliquidators.com/. They are the top seller of industrial sewing machines and have an overwhelming amount of fabrics and notions, most of which are from apparel businesses that have closed due to this horrible phase our nation is experiencing. Fear not, we will rise again!! In the meantime,"goody for me"!  I am starting a "cottage" business and have found excellent fabric at an affordable price.

This fabric is wonderful for the type of work I do, i.e. heirloom sewing and smocking. I have already made a couple of sweet baby daygowns. (FYI-This will be the subject of my next post.) With the upcoming trip to Alabama, I wanted to make something special for my little girls there. Hopefully, I'll have pictures of them wearing the creations in a few weeks. I decided  to make something they would know I made especially for them that they would hopefully keep as an heirloom, so I monogrammed each dress with their own initials. Two of the girls are sisters with the same initials so they will be able to swap dresses if they want since I made one in pink and one in blue.

Once I got all five monograms, including two of the same monogram, I cut out the top parts of the dress.  I played around with the "pillowcase" dress style again. Of course, I had to add my twist to it. Since this fabric is rather thin I thought it needed a slip. Who wears a slip with a sundress? So, I built the slip into the dress.

The only thing I used that resembled a pattern was this guide for cutting out the curve of the arms. I still changed it a bit since I was experimenting by adding the layer for the slip.

I struggled with how I would add the eyelet lace to the bottom of the dresses. I would love to have connected the eyelet to the fabric with entredeaux but I didn't have the amount I needed on hand and that is one thing they DID NOT have at the liquidators along with fine french lace, Swiss insertion and other things I would have loved for them to have. Hey, I guess that is a good sign that those kinds of places are doing well and not going out of business. (My "happy thought")

This was a definite NO!!!

At last I just decided to sew it without any fancy details. I used the KISS method. Keep It Simple Sweetie. This is something I have to tell myself often because I tend to go overboard sometime. As you can see in the pictures below, I just stitched the two fabrics together and top stitched.

I spent all day monogramming and cutting the dresses out and calculating how to put them together the simplest way with the built in slip. After sleeping on it, the next morning I woke up and had the answer of how I thought it should be done. (lol! another "sewing by ear" moment) Once I got to my sewing room and started working on what I saw in my vision, it looked different. I was afraid I didn't actually have the answer to it, but I thought "Just go with it, at the most you'll just have to rip it out".  So I did and voila'!!

 I'm not ready to share all the details yet. That will be in my first book or Cheirlooms Children pattern line.

This isn't the greatest picture and I'd love to have an actual child to model the finished product. This happens to be the mannequin I used to make my daughters wedding gown. It is too big for this child's dress, I know, but I needed to see how the dress  would work on some shoulders not a hanger. And speaking of hangers...I have to share another idea I've been saving paper towel rolls for. I've been needing some nice hangers to use when I take pics for my Facebook store and Etsy shop.

SATIN DISPLAY HANGERS

I can't recall where I got this idea, but I think it was when I visited my daughter in November and we went to the Nutcracker Market in Houston, TX. Sometimes I look at how things are displayed more than what is being displayed.

I have been saving these rolls anticipating to make these hangers for quite some time now. Since I had these dresses done I decided ...."If not now, WHEN?" Remember that?  I made a tube using white satin (left over from Magan's wedding dress) several inches longer than the paper towel roll. I then slid the paper towel roll down in fabric tube gathered the fabric evenly on the roll. I left about an inch of fabric on each end to tuck inside the roll and hot glued it. (I will use low temp next time. OW!) 

 I just cut a random sized square and grabbed a little polyfil to finish out the ends.

Make sure to put the stuffing in the center of the square, then pull up the sides and corners to make a little "ghost" and tie off  around the neck, clip off any extra strings because you don't want them getting caught in the glue. Ask me how I know.

I just glued around the rim of the fabric covered paper towel tube and popped the "ghost" down into the hole "feet" first leaving the "head" out. (I didn't intend to describe it this way, but it looks like a little "ghost" to me in these pics.) Once you have a ball on each end, add some ribbon for the hanger.  I tied the ribbon a few inches away from the end on each side. Just adjust it so the garment hangs evenly.

Please don't laugh if this seems unusual. It's just what I came up with out of desperation. I wanted something I could use to take pics of my "5 Little Dresses" that looked as special as the little girls I made them for.

 

These are for the older girls

Then I added the two little dresses

There we have it.....5 Little Dresses!!!

Smocked Pillowcase Dress Part 2

I finished the pillowcase dress and think the experiment worked. I am now in the process of creating this pattern for my Cheirlooms Children pattern line. It is so much fun mixing and matching fabrics that you normally wouldn't dare put together. Fabric designers are doing an amazing job developing colorful fabrics. These fabrics may be initially created for quilting but look absolutely gorgeous peiced together for childrens clothes.  I actually tend to steer away from those novelty fabrics created and marketed for children i.e. spongebob, dora the explorer and the like. I think the embroidered or smocked design placed on the fabric by the seamstress adds the whimsy the outfit needs. There, of course, will be exceptions to this from time to time. The traditional style blended with modern fabrics and technology have exciting results especially when you throw in a little imagination.

 Pillowcase dresses are a great beginner project for the new seamstress or as I have now learned, a stress free, fun project for those who have sewn all their lives. The experiment was to add the smocked design in the center of the dress and still make a casing at the top for a ribbon or cloth sash used to gather the dress at the neck line. I was also able to develop a way use more contrasting colors at the top of the dress to balance the colors used at the hemline. This process was what I call "sewing by ear". (I think that will be the title of my next post and possibly my first book!!!) P.S. This dress looks like it's faded in the middle of the front. I think that must be from the flash when taking the picture. I have on my wishlist a new camera, preferably a Rebel, so bare with me on the photography for now.

Hop over to my Etsy store, Cheirlooms and my Facebook store Chandler Heirlooms and Design (I still have to find out how to add a "button" to link there from my blog) . Of course, you will see this dress on those sights as well. I am anxious to have more designs and items to share in my store in the near future. We will work with you to customize a design made especially for your little ones. In other words, we allow our customers to be creative and we will do the work. Eventualy, we will have a selection of fabrics to choose from and examples of our embroidery and smocking designs to add to the creations. You will only be limited by your imagination. How fun is that?!!!!

There is a great resource here in my own town that is nationally known, www.t-tliquidators.com and it is such a blessing to be living in Lumberton, NC!! If you read my earlier post you picked up on my frustration of not living near a fabric store. How excited I was to find this "gold mine". Since it is a liquidator of industrial sewing machines and equipment, as my business grows I will now have at my disposal all the equipment that I'll need right here.

 I have a new friend that I enjoyed fabric shopping with ALL day yesterday. About 5:00 yesterday afternoon I truely realized what it means to "shop 'til you drop". We hit up every fabric store in Fayetteville and enjoyed several hours in Loving Stitches www.lovingstitches.net .  

Once I posted the pics of this dress to facebook I received several orders and will be working on creating new designs this week for relatives in Alabama. We hope to make a trip home in a few weeks. Since I work best under pressure, I will strive to have them finished to take with me. Somehow I will fit in work on daygowns in soft pastels next and possibly another simple sundress using some ecru eyelet fabric I found yesterday. I can see a sun kissed little girl at the beach wearing this out to dinner after a fun day in the sun. I'll, of course, share how this turns out.

TRY A LITTLE HARDER...

Here's what I've been working on since I last posted. Somehow I will have to learn to strike a balance and still post more often. I must confess, balance is something I struggle with. I will "try a little harder to do a little better". Gordon B Hinkley

I smocked this dress before our move in September for a friend's then unborn baby girl. Then the big move and settling in and lastly setting up my sewing room. (I will post pics of it in an upcoming blog post.) I finally finished the machine work and now to mail it. The baby girl was born in October. So I better hurry and get it to her. As fast as babies grow, she wont have long to wear it.  Notice the deep hem, though. That does allow for a little growing room. What a joy it is to sew for little ones!!

I love how sweet these little puffed sleeves look with a touch of smocking to act as elastic. I just picture a precious little arm in there.

I did a simple geometric design around the bishop style neckline. For a newborn, it only takes a few rows of smocking to make the gown or dress look special.

There is nothing more precious or classic as a little dress like this. Babies should be dressed "special" because they are "special". There will be plenty of time to dress them in the fashions of the day when they get older.

I have also been working on baby gifts that I have received orders for recently. I have done quite a bit of machine embroidery and I'm posting the day gown I just completed. These projects are giving me practice to hopefully make items for my own grandchildren one day. As fun as it is to make things for babies that I may never meet, I can't even imagine the JOY of sewing something for my own grandchild. OK, enough of that!!!

I made this baby daygown over the weekend and mailed it yesterday. It isn't my best work but once it was finished, I thought it looked nice. I will "try a little harder to do a little better" next time. I love pin tucks and have only made them a couple of times.  You experts out there, please don't cringe at the above picture. They pressed out pretty well.

After several unsuccessful attempts to hand embroider a feather stitch between the pin tucks, I added a feather stitch from the decorative stitches on my sewing machine and hand embroidered bullion roses on the machine feather stitch. I rarely use those "fancy" stitches on my machine, so it was a treat to use this stitch and have it be appropriate.

Of course, this was an extra touch that I added just because I wanted to smock. It was not part of the order, just a little a gift from me. This is a long sleeved day gown and this will look so sweet around that little baby wrist!

The above shows a front (pic on left) and back (pic on right) view of the day gown before I put the neck band on. I love the kick pleat on the back with the bullion rose. It looks so sweet when someone is holding the wee one to their shoulder and patting it's back for that all important "burp".

Here's another look at the back with the little rose bud and how a neck band looks before I sewed in on. Once I sew it by machine, I fold it over and stitch it down by hand.

You can see the inside of the neck band that I've secured by hand stitching and added french lace that I "tea stained" an ecru color. I used a simple whip stitch to attach the lace to the edge of the tiny neck band. Not pictured are the french seams that I used for this dress. I will show that in another post one day. I usually use french seams on all my baby and children's clothes. I love this technique and it makes a garment even more special and look like a true heirloom.

 

I have had a hard time finding the little buttons I want for my baby clothes. So, for this project I decided to use bullion roses instead and use snaps to fasten the dress closed. It may prove to be more functional for mom and dad, too. Those baby's do tend to wiggle and fastening buttons can sometimes be a challange. So it is probably a good idea to use snaps anyway. Come to think of it, it may be a blessing in diguise not to have those little buttons afterall.

I made a casing at the bottom of the gown and used button holes for the ribbon to enter and exit through. The dress overlaps right over left, therefore, if I just ran the ribbon through the casing without a way to overlap the two sides, it would not look as nice at the bottom or close completely.

I have a couple of other projects to post tomorrow.  I realize got a little lengthy with this one. I think the key to balance is moderation. Maybe they are the same and I just made a "duh" statement. I tend to go full throttle then burn out. So from here on, I will "try a little harder, to do a little better" and pace myself.

If not now, WHEN?

I finally did it!! I'm not sure what I'm doing yet, obviously, to those of you who are professional bloggers. I have only discovered blogs a few months ago. There is a whole world of communication and education out there untapped by people like myself.

I have a motto for the year. "If not now, when?" I'm not sure where I heard it or how it came to my mind but it haunts me. Life is passing me by. I feel that I have something amazing to do and I need to hurry and step out and do it. This blog is one of my first attempts this year in that effort. 

You can read my background information to get more details on me personally. I would like this blog to help me focus on my creative endeavors. I'm sure every now and then, however, I will be compelled as a proud mother and wife, to mention my 3 amazing children or my awesome husband.

I have been sewing or crocheting ever since I was a young child growing up in Northwest Florida. I had a couple of aunts that allowed me to sew on their sewing machines when I was as young as 7. I got my first sewing machine for Christmas when I was 12. I got a top of the line Singer sewing machine when I graduated high school in 1980 and still use that machine today! It is my favorite, eventhough I have others now. I have made many things over the years on that machine such as my suits for church or when I was in banking. Maternity clothes when I was expecting and then some sweet things for my babies. My masterpiece so far, though, has been my oldest daughter's wedding dress.

I taught myself to smock and learned heirloom sewing techniques from SEW BEAUTIFUL magazine when my children were young and we lived in Tuscaloosa, AL.

 I would make everything in 3's. I would make two girl outfits and an outfit for my son that matched his sisters. It was a challenge to pick colors and themes that worked for both sexes and allow my son to still be "all boy".

 My children are grown now and my oldest daughter is married and graduated from BYU last year. My son and youngest daughter attend LDSBC in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

I miss those days of chaos. Trying to sew, cook, clean and balance activities of the children and whatever was going on at church was always a challenge especially since I was homeschooling the children. But, I would not trade that for anything!! I miss it, as I said, and suppose I long for such chaos again while I'm waiting on the next wave to hit. That would be "grandchildren". So while I wait I am going to CREATE and hopefully post those creations and see what happens from there. Please follow me on my journey. I'm not sure where it will take us, what will happen or where we'll go. It should be interesting though. Let the chaos begin. If not now, WHEN?

Leslie Chandler