Penny play dress part two

When I showed you the Theo I sewed at the beginning of this month, I mentioned that my sewing machine has some thread tension issues. Yesterday, I handed her over to my machine repair shop, so this week I can only use my serger or my old machine. It is always bad to be almost forced to have a (small) sewing stop like this, but this time it is not that bad. This week I will be preparing (cutting paper patterns and fabric) for next week, the kids clothes week.

For the previous two KCW's I was not prepared when the week started, didn't have a clear plan and nothing was cut. This time as a contributor I would like to do things differently. Are you participating in KCW? If your are not yet planning so, please look into it. It really is great. The goal is to work an hour each day on making children's clothes (deciding on the pattern, drawing and cutting fabric all count if you want them to), but if you turn out to only have found time in the weekend (or have no project finished) it really is no problem at all. It already is just great fun to see what everybody is creating, and nobody will complain if you do not show project. So if you are interested in seeing cute hand made kids clothes just go to the KCW community website and sign up. This way you will see all the eye candy and might even win some prices.

The dress I am showing you today was actually sewn and photographed more than a month ago but somehow didn't make it to the blog yet, although I already mentioned the shoot here. After I adjusted the Free Penny play suit pattern to a dress, I almost immediately started a  new one, I loved it so much. When my middle daughter pointed to some fabrics in my closet that I didn't really have a purpose for anymore, I quickly turned them into two garments, the first one I posted here.

The unicorn fabric is from Hamburger Liebe and I bought it to check out the quality of their jersey and because I assumed my eldest would love the pink overload. Against expectation my daughter didn't love it and it just went on the pile (although the fabric quality is great). Fortunately I have more girls to sew for and like I mentioned earlier my middle daughter did love it. I combined the very colorful unicorn fabric with a plain jersey from Lillestoff.

While sewing the dress, I tried something new, I saw in a tv show that you can also gather your fabric with a serger. Just serge the side and pull some of the strings. Probably I didn't pull the right strings, (although I tried them all), because It didn't really work. The fabric gathered a bit, with every pull but I had to make many, many pulls. Gathering with the sewing machine really fits my sewing style much better. I just went with it, but the gathering turned out far from even and now I have a double locked seam, which is a bit stiff. The main things is that I tried a new technique so on that note the gathering experiment was very successful.

The dress has pockets in the color of the bodice and I finished the bottom seam in my signature style two colored twin needle stitch.

When I was trying out the settings of the camera I dressed her in her father's hoodie, because the weather was a bit chilly. When I took the hoodie off, my model kept complaining about the cold, refusing to smile, so to top the look we combined the whole thing with pink tights.

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).