Feeling proud

Is it vain of me to feel so much pride in this dress I made for my little one? Of course, all I did was buy the pattern, cut it out and sew it together, so I do realize its perfection is not entirely down to me.

But, it is totally the right dress for the right little girl. I think it looks great on her and I made it with more than my usual carefulness.

And I'm probably reveling in this feeling, because this isn't how I always feel at the end of a sewing project.

Pride is not usually thought of as an attractive quality. It suggests an excess of self-importance or an over inflated self-image. I don't think I have either of those things. I'm pretty aware of my small place in the world, but am happily surrounded by family and friends who love me.

But I am PROUD. The dress isn't perfect, but it's perfect to me!

Yes, it may seem a little incongruous to put in a bright green invisible zipper, when the thing is supposed to be hiding, but look at that lovely green zipper pull.

What's not especially clear from all these photos is that I finished the sleeves and the hem with a green ric rac. The dress itself is linen from Joanns. I love the weight of this fabric so much. I use it a lot for bags and pouches but this is the first time I have used it for clothing (mainly because I don't like ironing and this thing NEEDS to be ironed after washing), but it's worth it and the dress isn't very big. She's only five.

The pattern is the Sunki by Figgy's.

Figgy's - Sunki

I bought this gorgeous pattern a little while ago and gave myself a challenge to try it out with fabric and supplies I already had, rather than buy new stuff. I have been trying to reduce my fabric pile (so that I can justify getting more...) I used a navy blue polyester gabardine that was a real pain. It frayed like anything and would not succumb to the iron at all. It would not have been my first choice (or second, or third) of fabric for this dress and I'm not really sure it does the wonderful pattern justice. However, it was a great practice run and my girl does like it.

The leggings are included in the pattern too. A great little versatile pattern to have.

Because the navy gabardine needed brightening up, I decided to use piping on the seam edges. I made the piping using Anna Maria Horner's Little Folks voile.

Though adding piping is pretty straightforward, I thought I'd outline how I did it in case you are interested in doing something similar.

First I took the front panel and laid it out. I pinned the piping on both sides from the underarm seam down to the bottom of the pocket.

Next, using a zipper foot I seed the piping onto the dress front.

There may be better ways to do this, but I like to use a contrasting color for my bobbin thread. Once the layers for fabric start to build up over the piping and you can't feel where it is when sewing, I use the bobbin thread as a guide. Of course, the bobbin thread gets covered eventually by something else so at that point I just keep my fingers crossed.

Lovely pattern, great dress and leggings. Shame about the gabardine but I'm looking forward to thinking about what fabric and look I'm going to go for next time I make this.