Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Oh Scallops, Scallops. . .

I was very happy with the progress I made on the dresses today, in-between playing with my sweet wee ones and putting the drawers back in my sewing desk that the baby decided to take out and empty, and hunting high and low for my spool of white thread that the said baby made off with and deceptively Hid from me. He prefers real things to toys. After all, they are more interesting. It is very interesting to unroll thread from a spool, undoubtedly!

The skirts were easy to set on. I used a full width of the 60” wide fabric for the skirts. I was afraid 60” would be too skimpy but they turned out just fine. The material is a little heavier, anyway, so the stiffness makes the skirts stand out nicely. The scalloped band was incredibly fun to make.
First I made a template like this, by folding a piece of paper into eighths and then drawing half of the scallop on the fold. Cut out the scallop, and there you go! A template.
I then traced the template onto the strip of bias fabric (3 ½” wide)
And then cut it out.
Then I folded over the top edge of the bias band and stitched it to the skirt.

I still am not sure how to actually bind the scallops. I tried several different methods earlier but none of them worked out. I’m thinking the self fabric bias binding I made is just too heavy because of the weight of the fabric and I might need to make binding out of a lighter fabric, so in a nice trim color. White? Red? Black? I think perhaps black and red would look nice and boyish.

And here they are with the band attached. I think the band really makes the dresses have character and makes them different from just a plain old dress.
That’s all I did for sewing today. I still need to add buttons or hooks to the backs of the dresses, but I don’t have any appropriate buttons right now and I don’t have any hooks either. Hmmm. I think a trip to the fabric store is in order tomorrow when we go into town!
Here is a picture of my finished drawers.
And some of new fabric I recently got. Plaid silk, and some wool from eBay that was intended for baby coats. Alas, the wool is really too heavy for baby coats. I think I’ll use this wool and the babies will have coats made of my green flannel cloak that I intended to take apart and remake into something more appropriate for the 1860’s. I REALLY want to get the silk made up for my Sunday dress before our first event in a few weeks, but I don’t know if I’ll have time. Hope so! I’ll try! I really don’t have much left to do. 

6 comments:

  1. Oh! You made those dresses up quickly! They are so cute! And the Scallops are just like the orginal too! I can't wait to see them on your boys!

    And the babies underthings should go realitively quickly too. Its just the matter of not procratinating like I did when I was making them for one of my friends.

    Happy Sewing!

    ~Nona

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  2. Sounds like you had a very productive day. I tell ya, I am looking forward to the day when Aaron and I have our own children and I can be a SAHM. I am definately a homebody.

    Then there's that ever lingering question... What to cook for dinner. I do say, it is one of my flaws. I love to cook when I'm not dead tired from work, but after a long day, it's hard for me to be creative in the food department. We usually have chicken, rice, and a green veggie of somesort. Kinda of boring, but at least it's natural and healthy. Well, looking forward to more updates. God Bless!

    Lauren

    P.S. if you ever want to email me, my address is LEMarks@gmail.com

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  3. Oooh, those dresses are so cute! The stripes work so well.

    I just love scallops... never had the courage to try them, though! I too am uncertain when it comes to the binding.

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  4. Sarah-this might just be an early morning pregnancy sort of though, so do please bare with me...

    Instead of binding the scallops...could you just make a second row of scallops exactly like the first, sew the scalloped edges together and then flip it right side out...I guess it would be like the bottom facing on a peter pan collar? I'm sorry for my lack of proper words, but I'm blaming that on the baby too. :) Then just attach it like it was all one piece...if you're short on the dress fabric, I would think you could do it with just about anything...a contrasting red might be cute!--you'd hardly ever see it, but it might make for a cute detail...

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  5. Tilly, that makes perfect sense! :) That would be so much easier than binding the edges. For these I will try one more time, to try to make this like the original dress, but if it doesn't work out then I'll definitely try your method. And if I ever make scallops again for anything else, a facing would be the perfect way to finish them off!

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  6. I think the dresses you made for your boy's are adorable!! I can't wait to see what they look like in them.
    Faith G.

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Thank you for your lovely thoughts!