Enjoy 10-50% Off EVERYTHING on the website.
Prices are already reduced.
The sale ends at 11:59pm MT, Monday, May 9th.
Happy Creating!
Danielle Storm
www.whimsicalfabric.com
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Don't Forget to Shop our Mother's Day Sale - 10-50% Off Everything
Happy Creating!
Danielle Storm
www.whimsicalfabric.com
Happy Mother's Day - Save 10-50% Off Everything
Enjoy 10-50% Off EVERYTHING on the website.
Prices are already reduced.
Hurry, the sale ends at 11:59pm MT, Monday, May 9th.
Happy Creating!
Danielle Storm
www.whimsicalfabric.com
Friday, May 6, 2016
Sew Along #14 - Frannie Dress - Lesson #2
The Frannie Dress by Children's Corner
** If you would like to see an image on our blog in a larger format, just click on it to enlarge.
Note: Links to products within this post are either links to our website or affiliate links.
Please read the directions in your Frannie Dress pattern all the way through before you begin. It's probably a good idea to read through this lesson once before you begin also.
Day 2 -Stitching the Neck Opening, Adding Piping, Stitching the Armholes, and Side Seams.
1. If you washed the Wonder Tape or glue off your collars they should be dry by now. Grab your collars and give them a good pressing. Be careful though because ric-rac will melt with too hot of an iron.
2. Lay your dress out like so.
3. With the top side up and the front edge of the collar (edge with the pin) lined up on the center front of your dress, match up raw edges of your collar and dress. Pin into place.
4. Repeat for the other collar.
5. Using a long stitch length, baste the collars onto the dress. I find it easiest to baste about ⅛" from the edge. Excuse my crazy stitches below. A little girl distracted me. ;)
6. With right sides together, lay your lining on top of your dress, sandwiching the collar in between. Match up shoulder seams, center front, center back, and pin together.
7. Using a ¼" seam allowance stitch the dress, collar, and lining together around the neck opening. When you arrive at the center back, with your needle down, stop at the line you drew for the back slit. Raise your presser foot and pivot your fabric 45ΒΊ. Using your hand wheel, stitch one stitch ACROSS the corner. Pivot another 45ΒΊ so you are now heading down the angled line you drew for the back slit. I always like to do one stitch ACROSS corners because it make the corner turn sharper and look better.
At this point it is a very good idea to decrease your stitch length. We will be cutting the fabric very close to the stitches and decreasing your stitch length will help keep your fabric from pulling out. I decreased mine from 2.5 down to 1.
Now, stitch slowly and very carefully along the line you drew.
8. When you are one stitch away from the bottom of the V stop with your needle down. Pivot 90ΒΊ. Using your hand wheel, stitch one stitch ACROSS the bottom of the V. Again with your needle down, pivot and head up the other side of the V. When you reach the neck go ahead and increase your stitch length, stitch one stitch across the corner, and continue sewing around the neck opening.
9. Trim your seam.
10. Now for the scary part! No, it's not really scary. Well, just kinda. Take a pair of sharp shears. Make sure they are ones that you have very good control over. Carefully cut down the center slit. Cut all the way to the bottom stitch, being very careful not to cut any stitches. The closer you get to the bottom stitch the cleaner your facing will look when you turn it. But DO NOT clip any stitches or it will be a mess. Make sure you have good lighting and you can see what you are doing well. Go slowly.
11. Turn your dress right side out. Press out the corners at the top of your back slit. To get a good clean look to your back slit you will need to carefully tug down on your lining fabric at the base of the slit. Iron the corners and the slit well.
Your back slit should look like this when you are done. If you don't have a distinct V you might need to clip closer to that bottom stitch. Just don't clip it.
12. If you will be adding a label to the inside of your dress now would be a good time to add it. I pull my dress fabric away and sew it just to the inside of the lining. BTW, Wonder Tape is great to keep labels from shifting while you stitch. ;)
13. This is also the time to add your elastic loop for your back button. This part is optional. At the end of this lesson we do teach how to make a button loop with thread, so if you prefer that method go ahead and skip down to step #17.
Lay out the dress with the backside facing you. We are going to carefully tear out just a couple of stitches on the back opening. You want your elastic loop to be on the wearers left. Turn your dress inside out and very carefully rip out a few stitches, just enough so you can poke the hair tie between the lining and dress fabric, like so. Make sure the end with the glue joint is sticking out. That's a weak spot so we don't want to use it.
14. Stitch back and forth a few times right over the original stitch lines securing the elastic in place. Cut off the excess elastic (but not too close).
15. When you turn your dress right side out it should look something like this.
16. Go ahead and add your button on the other side, pulling your lining away so your stitches do not show on the inside of the dress. You might want to add a little piece of fusible interfacing behind your button and before you begin stitching to give your fabric and button a bit more stability.
17. If you will be adding piping to your armscye now is the time. First though we want to trim the cording out of the what will be the seams. This allows the seams to lay flat when we sew them. Grab your piping and clip the end of nice and straight.
18. Next, open up your piping to expose the cording.
19. Trim out about ¼" of cording. We will do the other end after we have sewn the piping to the dress.
20. Just as we did for the collar, lay your piping with raw edges lined up on top of the armscye of your dress fabric.
21. Baste the piping onto the dress using a piping/zipper foot.Don't forget to trim the cording out of the seam allowance on the other end of the piping now.
22. Lay out your dress like this again.
23. Grab the right edge of the dress fabric and pull it over the dress front and collar, towards the left side. Reach under the dress and grab the right edge of the lining and pull it under the dress and collar towards the left side.
24. Matching up shoulder seams, pin the dress armhole edge to the lining armhole edge right sides together.
25. When pinning you want to slide the lining so that it is poking out an ⅛" from the dress. You might remember that we did this with the Exchange Dress. If you are not using piping or trim on the seams this will ensure that the lining does not show when turned. NOTE: If you are using piping don't slide the lining out. Just make sure the raw edges are lined up with the piping sandwiched in between.
26. Keep pinning the entire armhole. You will need to tuck the collar/neck opening and left armhole fabric in between what you are pinning. Just scrunch it up good and pin away.
27. Using a ¼" seam allowance stitch the armhole edges. Trim your seam allowance and clip your curves. If you added piping to the seams here you will need to stitch with a piping/zipper foot. Increase the presser foot pressure and go slow.
28. After sewing your armhole seams your dress will be all bunched up between the armhole and the neck opening.
29. To turn your dress you will need to reach between the dress and lining and start pulling the dress through the shoulder area.
30. Repeat for the other armhole.
If you are still not sure how to sew these armholes you might want to take a peek at the Children's Corner video tutorial. It can be a great help!
31. Press the armholes seams well. If you had your lining poking slightly out past your dress material when you stitched, you will see how the dress material is ever so slightly pulled to the inside of the dress. This ensures that the lining will not show when the dress is worn.
32. Lay out your dress again.
33. Grab your dress front and back and lift up and over the dress, exposing the lining below.
34. With the right sides together and dress fabric matched up with dress fabric, lining fabric matched up with lining fabric, and the underarm seams lined up, pin together both sides of dress and lining. Note: With piping, you want the piping to be laying towards the lining This helps it stick up above the main dress once its turned right side out.
35. Stitch side seams together using a ¼" seam allowance. Don't forget to leave a 5-6" opening in one of your side seams!
That's it. You are all done for today. Congratulations! Check back here tomorrow for lesson three.
* If you would like to enter the prize drawing, please make sure you submit a picture of your completed lesson two to the Facebook Album by 12:00 noon CT, Tuesday, May 10th. Also, if you have any questions the Facebook Group is a great place to ask.
Thanks for sewing with me,
** If you would like to see an image on our blog in a larger format, just click on it to enlarge.
Note: Links to products within this post are either links to our website or affiliate links.
Please read the directions in your Frannie Dress pattern all the way through before you begin. It's probably a good idea to read through this lesson once before you begin also.
Day 2 -Stitching the Neck Opening, Adding Piping, Stitching the Armholes, and Side Seams.
1. If you washed the Wonder Tape or glue off your collars they should be dry by now. Grab your collars and give them a good pressing. Be careful though because ric-rac will melt with too hot of an iron.
Or, if you added piping you should be ready to go.
2. Lay your dress out like so.
3. With the top side up and the front edge of the collar (edge with the pin) lined up on the center front of your dress, match up raw edges of your collar and dress. Pin into place.
4. Repeat for the other collar.
5. Using a long stitch length, baste the collars onto the dress. I find it easiest to baste about ⅛" from the edge. Excuse my crazy stitches below. A little girl distracted me. ;)
6. With right sides together, lay your lining on top of your dress, sandwiching the collar in between. Match up shoulder seams, center front, center back, and pin together.
7. Using a ¼" seam allowance stitch the dress, collar, and lining together around the neck opening. When you arrive at the center back, with your needle down, stop at the line you drew for the back slit. Raise your presser foot and pivot your fabric 45ΒΊ. Using your hand wheel, stitch one stitch ACROSS the corner. Pivot another 45ΒΊ so you are now heading down the angled line you drew for the back slit. I always like to do one stitch ACROSS corners because it make the corner turn sharper and look better.
At this point it is a very good idea to decrease your stitch length. We will be cutting the fabric very close to the stitches and decreasing your stitch length will help keep your fabric from pulling out. I decreased mine from 2.5 down to 1.
Now, stitch slowly and very carefully along the line you drew.
8. When you are one stitch away from the bottom of the V stop with your needle down. Pivot 90ΒΊ. Using your hand wheel, stitch one stitch ACROSS the bottom of the V. Again with your needle down, pivot and head up the other side of the V. When you reach the neck go ahead and increase your stitch length, stitch one stitch across the corner, and continue sewing around the neck opening.
9. Trim your seam.
10. Now for the scary part! No, it's not really scary. Well, just kinda. Take a pair of sharp shears. Make sure they are ones that you have very good control over. Carefully cut down the center slit. Cut all the way to the bottom stitch, being very careful not to cut any stitches. The closer you get to the bottom stitch the cleaner your facing will look when you turn it. But DO NOT clip any stitches or it will be a mess. Make sure you have good lighting and you can see what you are doing well. Go slowly.
11. Turn your dress right side out. Press out the corners at the top of your back slit. To get a good clean look to your back slit you will need to carefully tug down on your lining fabric at the base of the slit. Iron the corners and the slit well.
Your back slit should look like this when you are done. If you don't have a distinct V you might need to clip closer to that bottom stitch. Just don't clip it.
12. If you will be adding a label to the inside of your dress now would be a good time to add it. I pull my dress fabric away and sew it just to the inside of the lining. BTW, Wonder Tape is great to keep labels from shifting while you stitch. ;)
13. This is also the time to add your elastic loop for your back button. This part is optional. At the end of this lesson we do teach how to make a button loop with thread, so if you prefer that method go ahead and skip down to step #17.
Lay out the dress with the backside facing you. We are going to carefully tear out just a couple of stitches on the back opening. You want your elastic loop to be on the wearers left. Turn your dress inside out and very carefully rip out a few stitches, just enough so you can poke the hair tie between the lining and dress fabric, like so. Make sure the end with the glue joint is sticking out. That's a weak spot so we don't want to use it.
14. Stitch back and forth a few times right over the original stitch lines securing the elastic in place. Cut off the excess elastic (but not too close).
15. When you turn your dress right side out it should look something like this.
16. Go ahead and add your button on the other side, pulling your lining away so your stitches do not show on the inside of the dress. You might want to add a little piece of fusible interfacing behind your button and before you begin stitching to give your fabric and button a bit more stability.
17. If you will be adding piping to your armscye now is the time. First though we want to trim the cording out of the what will be the seams. This allows the seams to lay flat when we sew them. Grab your piping and clip the end of nice and straight.
18. Next, open up your piping to expose the cording.
 |
| Ignore my horrible looking nails. My manicure was over 2 weeks old here. |
20. Just as we did for the collar, lay your piping with raw edges lined up on top of the armscye of your dress fabric.
21. Baste the piping onto the dress using a piping/zipper foot.Don't forget to trim the cording out of the seam allowance on the other end of the piping now.
23. Grab the right edge of the dress fabric and pull it over the dress front and collar, towards the left side. Reach under the dress and grab the right edge of the lining and pull it under the dress and collar towards the left side.
24. Matching up shoulder seams, pin the dress armhole edge to the lining armhole edge right sides together.
25. When pinning you want to slide the lining so that it is poking out an ⅛" from the dress. You might remember that we did this with the Exchange Dress. If you are not using piping or trim on the seams this will ensure that the lining does not show when turned. NOTE: If you are using piping don't slide the lining out. Just make sure the raw edges are lined up with the piping sandwiched in between.
26. Keep pinning the entire armhole. You will need to tuck the collar/neck opening and left armhole fabric in between what you are pinning. Just scrunch it up good and pin away.
27. Using a ¼" seam allowance stitch the armhole edges. Trim your seam allowance and clip your curves. If you added piping to the seams here you will need to stitch with a piping/zipper foot. Increase the presser foot pressure and go slow.
28. After sewing your armhole seams your dress will be all bunched up between the armhole and the neck opening.
29. To turn your dress you will need to reach between the dress and lining and start pulling the dress through the shoulder area.
Keep pulling and pulling until you pull the dress free.
30. Repeat for the other armhole.
If you are still not sure how to sew these armholes you might want to take a peek at the Children's Corner video tutorial. It can be a great help!
31. Press the armholes seams well. If you had your lining poking slightly out past your dress material when you stitched, you will see how the dress material is ever so slightly pulled to the inside of the dress. This ensures that the lining will not show when the dress is worn.
32. Lay out your dress again.
33. Grab your dress front and back and lift up and over the dress, exposing the lining below.
34. With the right sides together and dress fabric matched up with dress fabric, lining fabric matched up with lining fabric, and the underarm seams lined up, pin together both sides of dress and lining. Note: With piping, you want the piping to be laying towards the lining This helps it stick up above the main dress once its turned right side out.
35. Stitch side seams together using a ¼" seam allowance. Don't forget to leave a 5-6" opening in one of your side seams!
That's it. You are all done for today. Congratulations! Check back here tomorrow for lesson three.
* If you would like to enter the prize drawing, please make sure you submit a picture of your completed lesson two to the Facebook Album by 12:00 noon CT, Tuesday, May 10th. Also, if you have any questions the Facebook Group is a great place to ask.
Thanks for sewing with me,
Danielle Storm
Thursday, May 5, 2016
Sew Along #14 - Frannie Dress - Lesson #1
The Frannie Dress by Children's Corner
** If you would like to see an image on our blog in a larger format, just click on it to enlarge.
Note: Links to products within this post are either links to our website or affiliate links.
Please read the directions in your Frannie Dress pattern all the way through before you begin. It's probably a good idea to read through this lesson once before you begin also.
Day 1 - Tracing the Pattern, Cutting Out the Fabric, Creating Piping, and Sewing the Collar
1. Unfold your pattern sheets, locate the pattern pieces for your size and fussy cut around them. There will be three pieces; the dress front, the dress back, and the collar.
2. With most tissue patterns I like to iron the pieces before I trace them. This ensures that they are nice and flat and makes tracing easier.
3. I also like to place a piece of white paper behind the pattern piece when my surface is dark to make the pattern lines easier to see.
4. Place a piece of freezer paper, shinny side down, on top of your pattern piece. Use some pattern weights or tape to hold it in place.
DO NOT touch the iron to the glossy side of your freezer paper! It will melt and make a mess of your iron.
17. Mark two lines ⅛" from center on either side.
19. With right sides together line up the shoulder seams of your dress front and dress back. Using a ¼" seam allowance stitch together. Repeat with your front and back lining.
20. Press all shoulder seams open.
26. Once you have joined all your bias strips it's time to iron them in half lengthwise.
27. Open up your bias strip and place your cording in the center.
30. Grab your Wonder Tape or glue pen and apply it to your prewashed ric-rac.
31. Carefully apply the ric-rac to your seam line. Make sure to start at the front of the collar. You want the valley of the ric-rack located on the inside of the collar to just barely cover the seam line. You can stretch the ric-rac slightly around the curves to make it fit.
32. With right sides together, place your bottom collar piece on top of your ric-rac making a ric-rac sandwich. Stitch the outer curved edge using a ¼" seam allowance. Turn your collar right side out.
33. You might end up with Wonder Tape or glue showing on the outside.
34. Place a pin or Wonder Clip into the ric-rac tail at the front of your collar so you can remember which end if the front. Then, carefully wash away the Wonder Tape or glue with warm water. Pat to dry and then hang from the back ric-rac tail to dry all the way. Make sure to keep the pin in place so that you know which end is the front when you are ready to sew the collars onto the dress.
If you are not applying piping to your collar you are now done with today's lesson. Skip down to the bottom for directions on how to add your picture to the Facebook album and a chance to win a prize.
35. If applying piping add the piping to the right side of one of the collar pieces. Make sure to line up the raw edges of the collar with the raw edges of the piping. Keep track of which is the front of the collar. This does make a difference. Mark it with something if need be.
36. Clip around curves to make your application smooth.
37. Using a basting stitch and your piping/zipper foot baste your piping onto your collar.
38. Place the other collar piece, right sides together, on top of your collar and piping, creating a piping sandwich.
39. Using your piping/zipper foot again, stitch as close to the cording as you can. Since the piping has a ¼" seam allowance this will create the ¼" seam allowance needed for your collar. Don't forget to shorten your stitches from basting in the previous step. Go slow and be careful.
40.Trim down your seam and clip your curves. Repeat with the other collar.
41. Turn your collars right side out and press well. Make sure to keep track of what is the front and what is the back of each collar. I used Wonder Clips here for that purpose.
We are done with our first lesson. Woo hoo! Great job! Check back here tomorrow for lesson two.
* If you would like to enter the prize drawing, please make sure you submit a picture of your completed lesson one to the Facebook Album by 12:00 noon CT, Monday, May 9th. Also, if you have any questions the Facebook Group is a great place to ask.
Thanks for sewing with me,
** If you would like to see an image on our blog in a larger format, just click on it to enlarge.
Note: Links to products within this post are either links to our website or affiliate links.
Please read the directions in your Frannie Dress pattern all the way through before you begin. It's probably a good idea to read through this lesson once before you begin also.
Day 1 - Tracing the Pattern, Cutting Out the Fabric, Creating Piping, and Sewing the Collar
1. Unfold your pattern sheets, locate the pattern pieces for your size and fussy cut around them. There will be three pieces; the dress front, the dress back, and the collar.
2. With most tissue patterns I like to iron the pieces before I trace them. This ensures that they are nice and flat and makes tracing easier.
3. I also like to place a piece of white paper behind the pattern piece when my surface is dark to make the pattern lines easier to see.
4. Place a piece of freezer paper, shinny side down, on top of your pattern piece. Use some pattern weights or tape to hold it in place.
5. Using a Sharpie, carefully trace around your pattern piece. Make sure to transfer all markings and information onto your freezer paper.
6. Next, fussy cut around your freezer pattern piece.
7.
Repeat for all three of your pattern pieces.
8. Grab your stack of prewashed fabric and trim.
9. Give your fabrics a good pressing with your iron to remove any fold lines.
 |
| Like my husbands fix for my Rowenta? |
10. Now, the beauty of freezer paper patterns. I love this stuff!! Using the layout diagram in the pattern instructions, lay out your freezer paper pattern pieces, shiny side down onto your dress fabric. Take your iron and iron over the
pattern piece.
DO NOT touch the iron to the glossy side of your freezer paper! It will melt and make a mess of your iron.
11. The freezer paper will temporarily stick to your fabric making it super easy to cut your pieces out.
12.
Once you have ironed on your pattern pieces onto your dress fabric go ahead and carefully cut them out. Don't forget to transfer all of the pattern markings onto you fabric (shown here on the lining fabric).
13.
After cutting out and transferring the markings to the dress fabric carefully peel off the freezer
pattern pieces and apply them the same way to your lining fabric. The
beautify of the freezer patterns is that you can use them over and
over. Next time you are ready to make another Frannie Dress just pull
out your pattern pieces, iron them on your fabric, cut, and go! How
awesome is that? Don't you just love it?
Note: I chose to make my collar out of just the lining fabric because I wanted the look of the solid collar. You may use your dress fabric, lining fabric, or a coordinate. It's totally up to you. If using your coordinate fabric for the collar, please make sure to place them in a way to ensure you have fabric left over for creating the piping and the ties if you so wish.
14. Cut four ties, 1½" x 11" each. - Okay, I actually cut my longer. For the size 7 dresses I just made my daughter I cut them 1½" x 15".When cutting out your collar, make sure that you line up the grainline on the pattern piece along the lengthwise grainline of whatever fabric you choose to use. This is very important.
15. You should now have the following;
- 1 Dress Front
- 1 Dress Front Lining
- 1 Dress Back
- 1 Dress Back Lining
- 2 Left Collars Pieces (one reversed)
- 2 Right Collars Pieces (one reversed)
- 4 Ties
16. Grab your dress back and mark your seam line ¼" from the edge at the center of the collar.
17. Mark two lines ⅛" from center on either side.
18. Using a straightedge, draw two line down from your previous lines to the slit dot. Repeat for the back lining.
20. Press all shoulder seams open.
21. We are going to go ahead and make piping now. If you will not be using piping go ahead and skip to step #29.
Lay out your fabric and fold it so that the cut edge and selvage edge line up. We will be cutting on the bias, the folded edge. See the diagram above.
22. The petite cording takes about ¼" of fabric to wrap around it. We need a ¼" seam allowance on our piping. So we need a strip of fabric ¾" wide of fabric to make our piping. ¼" + ¼" + ¼" = ¾" Since the first cut is on a fold, cut it 3/8" wide. Then cut the rest of your strips ¾" wide.
23. Now, lay out your ¾" strips like this.
24. Sew across the them from the top left corner to the bottom right corner. You can draw a line with chalk if it helps.
25. Trim off the seam allowance and press open.
26. Once you have joined all your bias strips it's time to iron them in half lengthwise.
27. Open up your bias strip and place your cording in the center.
28. Using a piping foot or a zipper foot, sew down the bias strip right along the cording. I always lengthen my stitches when I sew piping. I change my normal 2.5 to a 3.5. It also might help to increase the pressure on your presser foot. Make sure your cording is hanging an inch or so out the end. (See it there in my picture?) Go slowly and make sure you don't "jump" over your cording.
29. We are now going to sew the collars. Mark the outer edges with ¼" seam allowances on both top collar pieces. This isn't really necessary if you are adding piping but is VERY helpful if you are adding ric-rac. If you are adding piping instead, skip down to step #35.
30. Grab your Wonder Tape or glue pen and apply it to your prewashed ric-rac.
31. Carefully apply the ric-rac to your seam line. Make sure to start at the front of the collar. You want the valley of the ric-rack located on the inside of the collar to just barely cover the seam line. You can stretch the ric-rac slightly around the curves to make it fit.
32. With right sides together, place your bottom collar piece on top of your ric-rac making a ric-rac sandwich. Stitch the outer curved edge using a ¼" seam allowance. Turn your collar right side out.
33. You might end up with Wonder Tape or glue showing on the outside.
35. If applying piping add the piping to the right side of one of the collar pieces. Make sure to line up the raw edges of the collar with the raw edges of the piping. Keep track of which is the front of the collar. This does make a difference. Mark it with something if need be.
36. Clip around curves to make your application smooth.
37. Using a basting stitch and your piping/zipper foot baste your piping onto your collar.
38. Place the other collar piece, right sides together, on top of your collar and piping, creating a piping sandwich.
39. Using your piping/zipper foot again, stitch as close to the cording as you can. Since the piping has a ¼" seam allowance this will create the ¼" seam allowance needed for your collar. Don't forget to shorten your stitches from basting in the previous step. Go slow and be careful.
40.Trim down your seam and clip your curves. Repeat with the other collar.
We are done with our first lesson. Woo hoo! Great job! Check back here tomorrow for lesson two.
* If you would like to enter the prize drawing, please make sure you submit a picture of your completed lesson one to the Facebook Album by 12:00 noon CT, Monday, May 9th. Also, if you have any questions the Facebook Group is a great place to ask.
Thanks for sewing with me,
Danielle Storm
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)