Roses are Red

June 28, 2018

Roses are Red

It's the final week for season 16 at Project Run and Play, and the theme is "Signature Style." In the outfit I made, I did my best to keep both my style and my daughter's in mind.

Long ago, I learned to sew from my mother. As she would sew her projects, I would sit in the sewing room and play with the fabrics and ribbon while dreaming about what I wanted to make. As I grew older, she and I sewed my formal dresses for dances at school. I loved the beautiful fabric and was always excited to wear a one-of-a-kind gown she and I made together. When I was in high school, I decided I wanted to sew handbags, and drafted my own patterns for them. I even had a (very) small business for a little while taking custom orders from fellow students and teachers. Because of this, I feel that my "signature style" always comes back to dresses and handbags.

For the dress, I used the Boundless Youth dress pattern from Patterns for Pirates. I have now made three dresses from this pattern, and both my daughter and I love each of them. I let her choose the fabric as I was shopping online at Cali Fabrics, and she chose a beautiful rose double brushed poly spandex knit. She loves all flowers, but especially roses. She also loves bows, ruffles, and accessories, so I knew I had to add some of those, too! I used a tutorial from The Ribbon Retreat to make felt rolled flowers. I made one into a rose clip for her hair, and some more for the handbag.

Even though it is currently summer, my daughter usually wants to wear a sweater when we go to church or restaurants because the air conditioning is so cold. This dark green knit fabric was in my stash, and I thought it went well with the dress. I used the bodice and sleeve patterns from the Boundless dress as a guide, and lengthened it a few inches at the bottom and added ruffles to both the sleeves and the bottom. I cut down the center of both the front outer and lining fabric, so it could open like a cardigan, and added a ribbon to each side to tie it closed with a cute little bow.

Naturally, the handbag is self-drafted by me. I used a natural sand colored denim from my stash for the outside fabric, and the same ribbon as the cardigan tie for the straps.

I used the very small remnants of leftover rose double brushed poly for the lining.

Since this dress has the same pattern piece for the front and back bodice, I cut the fabric for the front to have a large rose in the center. That way my daughter can tell which side is the front when she puts it on.