Tuesday, April 14, 2009

44 pintucks (and 21 ruffles) later

I would like to start by saying that somehow (unintentionally) I have over-represented my sewing abilities on this blog. A few of my MANY, MANY readers (ha ha) have gotten the impression that I'm a better seamstress than I am in reality. I'm glad that I've been able to fool you. Hooray for the internet & 2-dimensionality.

That said, Chick's Easter dress is all that I had hoped for, and I am actually proud of having been able to make it! I did use a pattern for general shape of the bodice & skirt, but I altered them. I drafted the sleeves, and I added the lining (which has tulle added) & ruffles & pintucks. I did buttons & buttonholes down the back, rather than a zipper like the pattern used. It's not really complicated in design, but I'm happy to have gotten the dresses to be so similar.

I studied the original dress. It was a great learning experience. It helped me remember when I was in college--in drawing classes I was given assignments to copy famous works of art, in poetry classes I had to analyze famous poems and write my own using the exact same pattern & grammar, and I think most religions recommend studying and following their Master. I've always learned a lot from these exercises, so it's no great surprise that I learned so much from studying a sewn dress that I loved. For instance, I didn't notice at first that the pintucks and ruffles were in different patterns.

ANYHOW, here are the pictures!
Curly Locks, curly locks, wilt thou be mine?

Hunting eggs with cousin K

7 comments:

Steve, Meghan, Elena, Sebastian, Ariana said...

Those dresses are so cute!! You have a talent!!

nikko said...

And I will start out by saying, "Whatever!"

Those dresses are adorable. I love the little blue ruffles. Sigh. Maybe someday I'll have granddaughters to make Easter dresses for!

Katie said...

So cute!! Great job, and yes you DO have talent!!

Simply Simmons said...

I can't say anything other than, YOU'RE AMAZING!! Love the dresses!

Jeanne said...

Oh my gosh, So Cute! I can't alter patterns just by sight, so you do have a talent! I am still in process of making my 2 older girls their Easter Dresses. It is taking a while because I haven't looked at clothing patterns in many years and I was a bit rusty...so I practiced on Kiara's--she won't care that it isn't perfect where Lyssa will be more picky. Happy Easter!

Heather, Rex, etc. said...

I could never make those in a million years! What a great talent you have!

Sindea Horste said...

OK, soooooooooooooooooooo incredibly CUTE. I wanna learn to sew. And to sew like that would be fabu. And the girls look awesome!