Lemon Shirrr-bet.

Hello there,

Remember me?? The slack one!

Well the boys 5th Birthday Party has came and gone and I didn't even have the decency to do a post-party post or even tell you how everything I made turned out. Well, I will do a post on that in the coming days (I will!!) but for now, this is a post on a little dress I made for my niece for her 1st birthday which is Monday.

I have been busy for ages..*ahem* 3 kids lately with lots of things going on and it wasn't until yesterday that I thought to myself..."I better get cracking on making something for Charlie (niece), her birthday party is on Sunday!".

I put my thinking cap on and came up with an idea to try something I haven't tried before....

Shirring.

I bought some elastic thread to do so a long while ago but never got around to experimenting. Yesterday was the day.

First of all, I went through my fabric stash to see what I could find and voilà....found the perfect fabric for the job. I am a sucker for seersucker (ha ha pun intended) and found some on special at Spotlight a few months ago at $2/metre. Can you believe it?? I just love a spotlight sale!! Anyhow, that's the fabric I used.....Yellow Seersucker.  

The dress itself was very easy to make. I wound (by hand) the elastic thread onto the bobbin, threaded up my sewing machine and I was ready to roll. I measured around Chelsea's waist and used her measurements because although my niece is only turning 1 and Chelsea is nearly 2, Chelsea is quite petite and Charlie is quite big for her age. I took that measurement and doubled it. It worked out to be roughly selvage to selvage so I went with that. I then measured from Chelsea's chest down to her knee and got 43cm (17in). I ended up with a big rectangle like this.

Next, I hemmed the top and bottom of the rectangle then drew some lines on the fabric with my magic fabric marker 1/2 an inch apart. I drew 10 lines altogether like this....

Then the best bit...shirring. The shirring was rather fun. I back stitched the start and end of each line and it was cool watching the fabric bunch up after each stitch.

After sewing 10 lines, I was happy that it looked good. I then folded my bunched up fabric (right sides facing) and sewed down the side seam. I also overlocked the side as well to tidy up all the threads.

I then ironed my side seam and also ran the iron with steam over the shirring. It makes all the elastic gather up tightly.

I turned it in the right way, put some straps on it and I had a cute little dress for my niece. Well so I thought.....

I tried it on Chelsea to see if it was a good size and looked OK...which it did! She looked adorable... but then she wouldn't let me take it off her. She was having that dress. She was twirling and posing in it. It was hers. So back to the craft table I went to make another one.

The second one was so quick and easy to make as I was no longer a shirring virgin. I did make a slight change though. For the second one, instead of just hemming the top and bottom, I hemmed the bottom and made an elastic casing on the top. After shirring my lines (dropped it down to 8) I threaded elastic (waist measurement) through the casing, securing at each end and then sewed it together in the side seam. It made the dress look a lot neater. I then added some ties and topped it off with a lovely yo-yo.

This is how the second one turned out.

I still haven't managed to get the first dress off my daughter's back so I thought I would just take a photo of her chilling out on the sofa wearing it...

Doesn't she look cute?

Anyways, I am off to hopefully find enough time before tomorrow to make Charlie some PJ's as well. If I don't manage to get them made, at least I have a lovely dress to give her :)

Thank you for reading and I'll be back soon...