Little girls

And their dresses. There is a crowd of new designers out there working on patterns for their daughters and selling them to stores like mine. Such cute little dresses. Look at this dress. How can you not fall in love?!!


No matter what fabrics you choose to work with, the dress is always perfect. This one is a bubble skirt. A little tricky to press. You begin by pressing the bubble and then work on the rest of the dress after that. The buttons are actually covered buttons choosing details from the flowers in the fabric and the leaves are satin stitched from sections of the fabric and carefully trimmed and applied under the buttons. So simple. What little girl wouldn't scream to have one of these!



And they love bows. Big bows and this patterns has ample bows.

And another thing we are seeing a lot of is the elastic gathering. It is so very easy to do yet customers are always coming in looking for the fabric that comes this way. They just don't realize how simple it is to do this. You wind the sewing elastic into your bobbin and sew. When you have applied the amount of rows you would like, you steam with your iron and it comes to shape. It is that easy. It takes just minutes. And it is just such a lovely look.

I do have to say though, that a lot of designers don't know a lot of good finishing techniques, or, they skimp on finishing techniques thinking that their daughters won't be wearing these dresses for long. A lot of patterns have major errors in construction and I struggle with the designer's concepts of accomplishing things because the instructions are so "make-do". I used to make a lot of children's clothing knowing that these would eventually be passed down to other children and they would have to withstand the test of time. Today's designers haven't a clue on how to perform a lot of techniques and so make things a lot more complicated than they have to be.

So, if you are working with these patterns, do not be afraid to use your own techniques. In the end, it will be worth it.