New Tools: Invisible Zipper Foot

It's fun to try out new sewing tools and sometimes you find something that's just very useful.  This is one of  those cases.

I've sewn garments for many years, but I've never actually used an invisible zipper foot.  In fact, I've actively avoided garments that required invisible zippers. I tried installing one with a regular zipper foot, with not very good results.

I bought a Viking Husqvarna invisible zipper foot to use on my machines, which are all Vikings.  I'm making a dress with an invisible zipper, so this seemed like an excellent time to try it out.

The zipper good has a large ridge down the middle which pushes the zipper coils to the side as you sew.  First you sew down one side.

Then you sew down the other side.  The needle stays in the middle while sewing, but the zipper coil moves to the other side of the center ridge when you move to the other side.

A regular zipper foot is used to start the seam at the bottom of the zipper, then a regular foot can be used.

The final result is fabulous: an invisible zipper!  I'll be using this technique again!  

Come back next week for more fun with a sewing machine.  You might even get to see the rest of the dress.

Fishy Dress for a Toddler

Sewing for little girls is so much fun.  I made a new dress for my favorite little girl.

This isn't the first thing I've made for her.  There was the Too Cute Pink Dress and the Madeline costume, part 1, part 2, and part 3.

Her father picked out the fabric at The Calico Cat in the Kaimuki district of Honolulu.  It's this print full of sea creatures just perfect for an island girl?

For a pattern I chose this Ellie Mae Designs pattern, sold by Kwik Sew.  It has really nice detailed directions for new sewers.  

I like the sleeve ruffles from view B, but not the trim, the fabric being busy enough, so my dress is a bit of a blend of view A and view B.

All the tricky sewing in this dress is in the bodice.  Here's the wrong side of the bodice, just as it's being sewn together.  Note the extensive clipping of the neck seam.

Right side out, it looks like this:

The next step is to attach the shoulder ruffles.  They get assembled as a set before being sewing to the bodice.

The armholes are finished with bias tape.   I used purchased bias tape, but this would have been an excellent opportunity to try making my own, as I described for a different project.

The finished shoulder ruffles are very attractive.

Come back next week for a new project and more fun with a sewing machine.

Halloween Costume, Part 2

Last week, I introduced you to the Madeline costume I'm making for an 18 month old and discussed the construction of a hat.  This week, I'm working on the major piece of the costume, a blue dress with a white Peter Pan collar.

I looked for a pattern for such a thing, but it didn't exist.  The best I could do is Butterick 4110, a dress with huge bib collar and at least the right sort of neckline.  I used the collar pattern piece to create a new collar.  The inside curve of the collar is exactly the same as the original collar and the outside is something that I drew that I thought would look about right.  The collar uses a 1/4 seam, unlike the rest of the dress, which is 5/6" seams,  There's no need for excessive bulk from seam allowances inside the collar.

Four pieces of the collar are cut and then sewn together in pairs.  The result is shown here, the front is at the top.

Finally, the collar pieces are attached to the outside of the dress, with the two pieces overlapping at the front so that they just touch at the neck seam.

When the dress is finished, the collar is pressed to the outside.  I got the halves of the collar to just touch -- an important style feature for this type of collar.

The dress has a button closure in the back.  I'm not a big fan of buttons on clothes for people to young to be trusted not to try and swallow them, so I substituted a zipper.  The front and back yokes were finished just by turning under the inside yoke and sewing it down.  This is a lot faster than hand stitching.

The sleeves were finished with just a simple elastic in a casing.

Come back next week and see how I finished off the costume!

Wrap Dress with Applique

Last Sunday was Easter and that's a day when a lot of lovely dresses come out of the closet.  It was no exception for me.  I didn't make a new dress, but wore one originally made for an event last summer.

The dress started out as Simplicity 8137, a simple wrap dress.   I didn't like the sleeve, so I changed it out for a flutter sleeve -- a very full, short sleeve.  I also had to modify the dress to fit me.

 The dress is made of polyester-cotton broadcloth, which has very little stretch, so proper fitting is required.  This material has a couple of advantages for this project.  First, it's quite inexpensive and when a dress requires 5 yards of fabric, that starts to matter.  Also, it's a perfect material for embroidery and applique, something like the island inspired skirts I've been making. 

This dress is something of a mixed technique project.  It includes machine applique, hand guided applique and decorative stitching.  The basic design is a flowering vine that accents the main features of the dress, curling along the front and neck openings.  The vine itself is far to big for machine applique, so it's hand guided applique.  The skirt section and the top section of the vine are each a single piece of fabric, bonded to the blue fabric and then stitched with a close spaced zig-zag stitch.

The leaves and flowers are machine applique with embroidered accents.  Both designs are from Embroidery Library.  The leaf is here and the flower is here.  The colors for the flower were chosen to contrast nicely with the blue and the green and also to go with a bracelet I wanted to wear with the dress, which has lapis lazuli, peridot, and garnet.   Each of the leaves and flowers were individually placed.  The leaves have stems.  The flowers do not, so I added those before placing the flowers.

Finally, I added decorative stitching to the hem of the dress and the sleeves.  It's a built in decorative stitch on my machine.

Come back next week for more fun with a sewing machine.

Flower Girl Dress

It's the time of year when brides are planning for spring weddings.  A friend asked me to modify a flower girl dress for her wedding.  The nice part is that there was an available dress that fits the flower girl and is pleasing to the bride, the flower girl, and her mother.  The original version of the dress was decorated with pink flowers.  The bride's color is purple, in all shades.  The dress required a redo to change from pink to purple.

The dress consists of two pieces, a sleeveless dress and a tulle overskirt.

The first modification to the dress was to remove the green ribbon at the hem and replace it with purple.  The second modification was to change the flowers on the bodice.

The original pink rosebuds came off easily. I was considering several options for replacement, including embroidered organza.  However, a friend I took to the fabric store found this great trim.  The flowers are about the right size and color.  After cutting them apart, I hand sewed them to the bodice.

The overskirt has two layers of tulle, with silk flower petals between the layers.  I opened the side seam and replace the pink flower petals with purple ones.

The original petals were held in place with hot glue on the back side.  I used the same method and placed the petals at the exact same locations as the originals, to hide the spots of old glue.

Finally, the ribbon tie for the overskirt was replaced by a purple ribbon. Now the lightly used flower girl dress is ready to go and has a new mission.

Come back next week for more fun with a sewing machine.