The last couple of days have been “organising” days.  The dreaded tax return has featured but then so has the Applique workshop I’m running on Sunday.  I’ve spent some more time making pattern templates which is fun in a geeky kinda way.  So now I have these guys in my collection

The dining room is now a staging area for all my fabrics, tools and of course my machine.  But I still felt unprepared and that’s because I haven’t actually proved any of my new patterns work.  Well you guessed it there really is only one way to test that.  So this afternoon has been spent cutting, ironing and sewing.  To produce this little dude….

And while he is very cute he’s also not very functional.  So I spent the rest of my afternoon making him a “friend” and turning the whole lot into a little shopper.

If you’d like to know more about my workshops then please use my feedback form or the comments on this post.

It’s been a busy week but I really wanted to make Pixie a new summer dress because she’s grown, yay! And now although she’s not quite a three year olds width she’s at least that tall.  Which makes getting patterns to fit much easier.

I used the same basic pattern as Alice’s dress last week but styled differently as the last thing Pixie needs is yards of billowing skirts.  It’s the same top so in addition to gathers I used bias tape to keep the arm’s neat and comfortable.  Must remember to order some more as well as some more elastic.

I chose not to use Serge this time as I’d already cut the fabric using pinking shears (no that’s a real name check it out) and overlocking seemed overkill.  The “pinking” stops the fabric fraying and meant I didn’t need to French seam either.  The dress is poly cotton in purple and pink with a small flower pattern.

Because the Pixie is extremely slim I actually put the waist ties in on this dress.  It’s quite a simple addition but allows her to get in and out of it and then it still looks like it was made for her.  So here she is posing in the early morning sun.  Have a good weekend 😉