Irish Dancing Dress - the final dress!

She doesn't look thrilled here, but I should
have know better than to try to take
photos of her while the TV was on!

Deep exhale. I did it, I finished the dress! Now the little miss and I just have to wait another couple of months before she gets a chance to wear it... it looks like St Patrick's Day will be the first time she'll be dancing in it. I'm not sure if the waiting will be harder for her or for me!
If you want to see the beginning of my Irish dancing dress adventure, check out part 1 and part 2.

Once I finally got the little miss to try on the dress to determine the arm length and to make sure the skirt length would be ok, I got straight back into it. First job was to attach the tulle underskirt - lots of gathering and lots of pinning!



I waited until the little miss could try on the dress before attaching the tulle because I wanted the tulle to hang down lower than the over skirt, but just how much longer was the problem without the model. Then came the zipper (nobody needs to see pictures of me fumbling about with a zipper), and then it was time to decorate! The little miss wanted the sash to be like the one on her practice dress (which was made out of tulle) so I happily obliged as it was pretty simple to make. And it would tuck quite nicely under the trim at the shoulder as well as the hip. Now onto the decorations that really make a solo dress... Since I don't have an embroidery machine, and I'm not very skilled in that area anyway, I purchased this sparkly trim instead.

Trim pinned on waiting for hand stitching.

The little miss and I had a little play around with how to lay it out... I had planned to do a diagonal line across the front of the bodice and a belt around the waist, but the little miss insisted it needed a 'necklace' to go with the 'belt' so I went with that, but I also added the extra down to the hip because it just seemed to be lacking something without it. She also really wanted to make 'bracelets' with the trim around the the arms, but I didn't have enough of it to make it around both arms. I'm sure the bracelets would have looked quite good, but I'm kind of glad there wasn't enough trim left as it would have been a nightmare trying to piece the diamonds together at the seam.

Trim pinned & waiting to be stitched.
(and my fancy wall hooks)

Here's a slightly blurry photo the little miss took of me
working on the hand stitching.

The trim was deceivingly difficult. I had been looking forward to this part the whole time I was sewing, but in reality it was really just a pain. I had figured that I would sit on the couch one evening hand stitching it on while watching TV, but in reality I had to sew it while it was hanging or else the fabric would bunch and twist (even though it was thoroughly pinned on). So I spent a good majority of the day standing up stitching it while it hung off a hook on the wall. Hanging it from a hook on the wall was one of the best things I came up with in the whole process of making the dress... We still had those removable contact hooks up on the wall from where we hung our Christmas stockings, and they were at the perfect height for the dress to hang from while I hand stitched it. It was also handy in that the dress was hanging in the lounge where the kids spend most of their time, so I could still be present & interact with them while they played and I could leave it hanging there mid stitch while I tended to other things as needed - and it was high enough that the kids weren't going to get at it and mess it all up!

And then it was done... The little miss was jumping up and down with excitement when she was able to try on the final product. In her highest, squeakiest voice she said it was the 'Best. Dress. Ever.', so I'm pretty confident that she's happy with how it turned out.

This is a bit of a terrible photo of the little miss, but it's a pretty good photo of how
the skirt moves. 

The sash still needs a little trim at the bottom, but other than that - it's done!

Believe it or not, I've already started brainstorming for the next one... A cupcake ruffle skirt is on the cards, so I'd better get working on my ruffling skills.

UPDATE as of 19 July, 2013: This dress has now been embellished with crystals. You can see the new updated version of the dress here!

Irish Dancing Dress - part 2

Recently I got to spend an entire day working on the solo dress, but sadly I had to stop before I wanted to as I got to the point of needing to fit it to my model who was away from home for a few days (hence having time to actually work on it)...

The 'not pink!' mock up dress.

A few days earlier I had re-jigged my practice dress pattern and made a mock up of the dress base with some ratty old lining fabric I had laying around. The little miss tried it on and it was a pretty good fit - yay! The only thing that really needed fixing was the neck which was a little too tight. However, the little miss was very concerned with the colour - after a little reassuring that the real dress was indeed going to be hot pink she cheered up. We had a little play with the skirt of the dress and tried out kick pleats and gathering and decided that we'd go with kick pleats this time.

And then it was on to the real thing...So I basically made the same dress over again in different fabric. To be honest I'm really glad I made the mock up - I was more relaxed sewing up the 'good' fabric as I had already worked out a few hitches with the ratty fabric so there weren't any surprises!

Nearly there...

So here's where I got to... base dress waiting for a zipper, tulle underskirt, hemmed sleeves, and embellishments!

And then I had a bit of an afterthought - kick pants (bloomers). I made them using a pair of her pajamas in the same way that I did in this post - just a lot shorter. They turned out good and they fit, so I'm happy with that!

Bloomers just before they were sewn up.

The end is within sight... Soon we'll all get to see my first completed Irish dancing solo dress!

Flax Bangles & Crosses

I did a couple of flax weaving courses at the beginning of the year and I thoroughly enjoyed it! I love weaving and have more kete & kono (bags & baskets) than I can use, so I generally just do it for the doing - not necessarily for the end product. I've been full on with the sewing lately and haven't woven a thing for the last few months, so it was lovely to get back into it.

Because I'm still a bit OCD with the school gala crafts at the moment, I was trying out a few things I could make that wouldn't take too much time that can be sold at the gala... The theme is Kiwiana this year, so I couldn't not do any flax weaving for it!

First I made some little flax crosses. I've been meaning to give them a go since I did my very first class as it reminded me of how my Grandpa used to fold our palms at Palm Sunday mass into crosses. I found a couple of sets of instructions on the internet to make a palm cross, but really I just ended up working it out for myself. They're ridiculously easy once you know what to do, so I made a few to sell on the day - actually, I may bring some prepared flax with me on the day and make some while I'm selling. And if you're wondering about me making crosses to sell at a school, it is a Catholic school so it's all good!

Next I made a bangle that I've also been meaning to try for quite some time since I found the instructions for it on the website of a South Island weaver Ali Brown. If you're at all interested in flax weaving, I recommend checking out her website. The bangles (or wristbands as she calls them) are not as time consuming as I first thought... The first one I made took me about half an hour, but that's because I have a habit of making my weaving strips very thin - it looks pretty, but takes a lot longer! Once I got the first one sussed I made another 16 over the next day or two (as you do) and in the end they were taking me about 10 minutes for the ones with a larger weave and 15-20 minutes for the real small weave ones. With one decent flax leaf I can make 2 bangles (one from each side of the leaf), so there's not too much harvesting to do either.

My to do list seems to be getting a little on the long side at the moment, but I'm hoping to squeeze in another flax harvesting session soon so that I can also make a few little baskets & bags for the gala as well.

Irish Dancing Dress - part 1

At her first competition in one of
the school outfits.

Brace yourselves, this might be a long one!!!

So, the little miss is a little Irish dancer - she loves preforming and she danced in her first competition a few months ago. I knew right from the beginning that she was going to be sticking with the Irish dancing and I decided that I wanted to be the one to make her first ever solo dress (she used one of the school outfits for the first competition). For those of you who don't know, this is no small feat to take on! I spent hours looking at different dresses online and searching for pattern ideas and tips for sewing these amazing dresses. The dresses that I've seen in local competitions range from the amazing (costing thousands of dollars) to plainer, more basic dresses (still costing hundreds). I knew that the little miss' dress would be on the plainer side as I'm not experienced enough to take on the fancy applique & embroidery that many of the dresses have - and I also don't have the money, or even access to, some of the fancier materials used in some of the skirts and embellishments.

The tulle is a bit low & wonky in the  front
in this photo and it drives me a bit crazy to
look at it, but it's been been fixed since then!

Since I essentially had to make my own pattern, I started with a 'practice' dress. I made this one out of a stretchy velvety fabric so that I would have more leeway with it. The stretchy material could not be used in an actual competition dress, but this was just a practice (and play costume) so I wanted it to be able to stretch so the little miss could get into it even if it was a bit too small anywhere. I used the bodice pattern from a 'regular' dress as the base for my practice dress, but I dropped the waist (a bit too much it turns out), added a gathered over-skirt in the same fabric, gathered tulle as the underskirt, added a sash to the back, and voila!

I love the back of this dress, but I'll make the sash a bit fuller for the next one.

So the next step was to take this dress to the dance teacher to see how it would measure up as the base for the solo dress that I was to make... Other than the fact that the waist was a bit too low, and the skirt was a bit too long (both of which I already knew) the only thing that needed altering was the neck. The neckline has to be higher than the collar bone. So all in all I was pretty pleased! And the little miss LOVES this dress - I thought she might use it as a costume, but it's her favourite dress and she actually wears it out. A lot!

So seven months after making this first practice dress, I'm well into the making of the actual solo dress. You'll have to wait for part two to see that one - oh, and for me to actually finish it first!

*You can see part 2 here, and the final dress here.
And then if you want even more you can see how I ended up bling-ing it out here.

Fabric Envelope Pouches

I'm still slightly obsessed with crafts for the school gala at the moment... It's not for another couple of months, but I know that if I don't do it now while I've got a bit of time I'm going to get swamped with other things and end up rushing to get them all done!

I found this fabric envelope tutorial while searching "fabric scraps crafts" on both Pinterest and the general internet. (I have A LOT of fabric scraps that are calling out to be put to good use for this gala!) It looked easy, so true to form I jumped into it by cutting out a dozen or so in various sizes. The tutorial doesn't have any actual measurements (because it doesn't really matter what size you cut it out to), so I made mine according to the size of scrap I was working with. Once fully made, mine measure anywhere from 17 x 11 cm down to 10 x 8 cm. I also made one of the smaller ones for myself as it's perfect for carrying my business cards around in my bag. 

I started with a rectangle, folded it into 3 (to make sure the final size would look ok), and then cut the 'top' third to a point like the top of an envelope. I then laid my cut out shape onto my lining fabric and cut out one of those too. I pretty much followed the instructions in the original tutorial, with a couple variations. After making the first 2 I skipped out the elastic loop part as I really, really, hate sewing loops into seams with thin elastic and decided that I'd rather sew on snaps or make button holes for the others - so that's what I did, and I also top stitched around all the open edges as I thought it made for a nicer finish.

I made 10 of these from start to finish in one afternoon (with my kids and husband around distracting me) so really, these don't take much time at all! And they're pretty much as cute as the fabric you use to make them with.

Lego Mini-fig Display Cabinet - and Merry Christmas Everyone!

I hadn't planned to write a Christmas post, but I just couldn't wait to share the awesome present my husband made me!!!!! I have a small, but growing, collection of Lego Mini-figs (I stopped pretending they were for the kids a long time ago) and until today they lived on a shelf with random other stuff on the cabinet in our kitchen. Ages ago I had pinned various mini-fig storage case thingies, and suggested to my husband that he could make me one for my Christmas present this year. And he did!

I love that he made it himself, and I know that it ended up being a larger (and more expensive) task than he had first anticipated, but I think the end result is fantastic! There is still room for my collection to grow, and as Harry Potter & his friends at the top are kindly demonstrating, there is space to be creative around the frame itself as well. Although, I wish I were able to make it look more like Santa was dangling JarJar Binks off the edge of the frame...

I hope that you all get something that makes you smile this year. Merry Christmas everyone!

Jewel Hair Pins

This post is about another craft for little miss' upcoming school gala...

I actually made these hair pins last year when I had a table selling my own crafts at the little miss' kindy Christmas craft market... Since it was a kindy run market, I wanted to have a few little inexpensive things that the kiddies could buy with their pocket money. I found these hair pins and gave them a go...

I bought a big bulk pack of bobby pins and a jar of 'jewels' for a total cost of less than $10. I went for jewels rather than buttons because buttons are actually quite expensive and the little miss preferred the sparkly-ness of the jewels anyway! There were so many jewels in the container that I was able to be really picky with the ones I wanted to use and we the jar was still well over half full when we were done.

They were super simple to make and the little miss and I were able to knock out about a hundred of them in one sitting. We cut up some card stock we had laying around the house and pinned them on in pairs for the little jewels and singles for the large ones. I found some card slips that my husband had leftover from when he collected some sort of cards and they fit perfectly, so I packaged them in those to make them look even fancier. I sold them for $0.50 for a pair with little jewels and $0.50 each for the large flower jewel ones. They were a hit and I sold quite a few to the littlies and just as many again to the grown ups! I have taken them to other markets I have done as well and they do quite well - especially around Christmas and Easter as stocking/Easter basket fillers.

Needless to say, the little miss has quite a few and she likes to wear them all at once - unless, of course, she's using them as mini wands for her little dolls and other creatures.