Frozen Dresses Part 2

I decided to start with Anna's cape. I thought it would be a good way to ease into both of these projects. If she wants to Tristyn can wear the cape by itself.

I was right. It was a very easy project. I did the whole thing in an afternoon.

Here are the pieces all cut out and ready to sew.

The pattern called for ball fringe to put around the cape overlay. I couldn't find a ball fringe that went with the fabrics. But I did find this cute trim. It looked like it might be hard to sew in place so I decided to apply some fusible web to the back to help it stick to the fabric.

The project has several pieces that are fused to the cape fabric. Since most of the fabrics are felt I wasn't worried that they would fray. However, since it is for a little girl who loves to wear all of her princess dresses, I think it will probably get washed. So I decided to just do a straight stitch close to the edge of those pieces. I also decided to do a straight line of stitching on each side of the fusible on the trim after I fused it in place.

I'm happy with how the cape turned out. 

Next comes the dress. It will be at least a few days before I have a chance to get to that. Until I get an electrician into my studio to get some canned lights I can only work during the day. And life will be getting in the way of play during the day for the rest of the week.

Happy Sewing,

Carol

Frozen Dresses Part 1

My three year old granddaughter loves the movie Frozen and just about everything Frozen like so many other little girls. I saw this pattern at Jo-Ann Fabrics about a month ago. 

I sent a picture to my daughter and asked her if Tristyn would like one of these dresses. She told me that she'd love it. When I asked which one she'd like she said I don't know because she loves both characters the same. Some days she wears her hair like Queen Elsa and other days it is Princess Anna. So I guess I need to make both.

I bought the fabric a couple weeks ago for both dresses. I wanted to measure Tristyn before cutting into the fabric. I started playing with the pattern pieces. I divided them up so the Anna ones were in one bag with that fabric and the Elsa fabrics and pieces were all together. I started working on the applique pieces for the Elsa dress thinking Tristyn would pick that one first.

They came over on Saturday night and I showed Tristyn the pattern and the fabrics. I told her I needed to measure her so I could make them. Then she had to measure me too. Very cute the way she did it. Then she announced that she wanted the Anna dress, preferably right that moment.

As I've had time for the last couple days I've been cutting out the pieces for Anna's Dress and Cape. Today is the day I start working on them. I'm trying to decide if I want to start with the cape or the dress. I'm sure the cape will be easiest. I guess I'll decide once I get in  my studio and take a closer look at things.

Stay tuned to watch my progress. Wish me luck.

Carol

Gracin's Angel

I love making these little Guardian Angels from Bird Brain Designs. In the past I have stitched out the designs, most of the time with Turkey Red Perle Cotton.

I wanted to make another one for my grandson, Gracin for his dedication day at church. However, I am having difficulties with my right hand so stitching is out of the question right now. I have turned other stitching designs into applique projects before. You can read the blog posts about them here and here. So I decided to make a machine applique angel for him. 

All of the angels looked like girls to me so I did a little adjusting to the pattern. Here is a picture of the original angel I chose and how I adapted it to look more like a boy. It also shows the fabrics I used. I have been saving jeans for years. I chose a pair of my husband's to use for the overalls. I thought that would give even more special meaning to the piece.

I traced the pattern pieces onto fusible web. I traced the entire shape of the body rather than breaking it down into smaller pieces. I actually ended up tracing a second body piece so I had one for the front of the angel and one for the back. Even though I could have used the circle from the body piece as the head, I decided to trace just the circle portion of it onto the fusible web for the face.

I then fused all of the pieces onto the appropriate fabrics. Here are all of the pieces cut and ready to assemble. The wings are cut from a small scrap of batting.

I positioned the wings where I wanted them on top of the back. I like to use an applique pressing sheet when I do fusible applique. You can see a good example of this in this blog post. I assembled all of the pieces for the front of the angel onto the pressing sheet. Then I put that whole piece on top of the back and batting and fused it together.

I used a blanket stitch to stitch around all of the fabric pieces. This is my favorite setting for this because the bite is relatively small. With tiny pieces I don't like the stitch to come in too far into the shape.

I free hand, free motioned a heart onto one side of the wings. It is really hard to get the batting stabilized enough to do that. I don't love the heart but he won't care.

I wrote a poem I found appropriate for the dedication inside a card. Then I wrote a little message to him on the back of the angel. Here's what he looks like all finished. I think he's pretty cute.

Happy Sewing, Stitching and Creating,

Carol