KCW part one: Sashiko embroidered Ishi

Last week was Kids Clothes Week. I didn't manage to post about my KCW sewing because I was too busy sewing (and only finished this dress yesterday). After I participated in my first KCW, I wrote that in next seasons I would either have an easy project every day or one very extensive one during the whole week. In the previous KCW, I posted something everyday. This time I went for the big challenge version. I hand embroidered a dress. It took a lot of time (I easily reached my one hour a day and more), but I could do this sitting next to my husband while watching our favorite tv shows (which I usually can't because I can not machine sew and watch). So this slow sewing was a nice change.

My extensive project was the Ishi (the embroidery part was extensive, the dress was a quick sew) from Straight Grain. The Ishi is a dress pattern for woven fabrics and has princess seams and big pockets. The dress is perfect for interesting fabric combinations. Ishi is the Japanese name for "pebble" or "stone", the dress got this name because girls can put their treasures in their pockets, and when playing outside many of those treasures are stones. To honor the name of the dress I wanted to use a Japanese embroidery technique. Sashiko means running stitches and this technique was used in the past to mend clothes. Holes or weak spots were fixed by sewing another piece of fabric on it with decorative running stitches. Now a days it is mostly used for decorative purposes. I had seen some lovely examples of this technique and I wanted to try it. The side panels and the front panel are embroidered with two different patterns and different colors. I first cut my pattern pieces, than I embroidered them  and the last step was sewing the dress. I think a dress with a Japanse name and Japanse sewing techniques perfectly qualifies for the "traveling" theme of KCW. I did also make two very quick travel themed projects, more about those tomorrow.

The pockets are made with the same smocking technique as this bag which I made a few years ago. This is not Sashiko but the technique is from a Japanse book. I loved the result and wanted to use the technique again. I think it is amazing how you can make these cure flowers with polka dot fabric.

So instead of using three different fabrics I actually only used one (scrap) fabric to make the entire dress. I made my eldest a dress with this fabrics once (no blog post on it) and I had a piece left that would be perfect for this dress. The pockets demanded more fabric that I anticipated so I had to sew two pieces together to get enough fabric, but the seam is almost invisible.

The invisible zipper was a challenge. I wanted the dots to line up perfectly but my fabric had a bit of stretch. I almost succeeded but after (partially) seam ripping for the third time I decided it was good enough.

In real life, it really seams that the dress is made from four different fabrics. It was hard to capture this on the photos, I hope you can see it. Both my model and the sun were not being cooperative, but I had a competition deadline to make so these pictures had to do.

I wanted a sleeveless dress and therefore redrew the shoulders slightly to have cap sleeves. I wanted the cap sleeves to be an extension of the princess seam, I am very satisfied with the look. I had to redrew the pattern size wise. My skinny girl needed a size smaller than the pattern provides at the chest and the length of size 80. I started from the smallest size and slightly redrew the chest. The fit is perfect now, which means that the size table is accurate.I fully lined the dress with an old cotton sheet because I wanted the embroidered back of the fabric not to be in contact with my girls body.

I love to hear what you think of my creations. Feel free to leave a comment in the language you prefer (although Google translate might have to assist me if you choose something different than English, German, Dutch or Hungarian).