Snowy Holidays Part 2

This is my kind of blog tour!! Christmas is my absolute favourite holiday. Hands down. And I love the opportunity to make some beautiful Simple Life Dresses so I was so excited when I was offered the chance to join in on this tour. Part 2 simply refers to the fact that this is the second holiday dress blog post for the month. Here’s a secret. The skirt on the first dress was actually supposed to look like this one had I had enough fabric on hand.

I’m going to show you all around the dress I made for the tour and then down at the bottom of this post you’ll find 2 amazing prize packages from a great group of sponsors. A rafflecopter link and a link-up button for all your own Simple Life holiday makes and you should know that there’s also a site-wide sale going on! That’s 20% off all the patterns with the code SLPcoSpecial.

Have you seen the brand new Pearl dress by Simple Life? I fell in love with the whole dress the moment I saw it. The tiny ruffle on the hem of the skirt and those sleeves! Puffy sleeves and I are just a new thing. While my nose has been turned the opposite direction and slightly raised where puffy sleeves are concerned, I’ve found myself starting to really like them. Add to that a full length sleeve and it’s like I’m a whole new me!

If you’ve been following along with all the wonderful ladies this week so far you’ll have noticed something pretty spectacular about Simple Life patterns. They are both simple and quick for those that prefer a fast sew or find themselves beginners in the sewing world. At the same time, they also allow for all sorts of added details, big and small, for those that love to experiment. And that’s exactly the category that I fall into.

Once I knew I wanted to use the Pearl dress and ideas were beginning to form, we got the amazing news that Hart’s Fabric was going to be sponsoring the tour!!! Doors opened! Ideas I had written off came flying back into my mind! I needed lining for an underskirt, tulle and leather! And it’s a good thing I had an idea in mind because the selection is awesome and I would’ve been lost in the possibilities for hours. (Who am I kidding? I probably still spent hours looking.) I already had the gorgeous Amy Sinibaldi rayon from her holiday fabric line as well as a beautiful pearl and rosette covered neckline appliqué from Sew Vagabond.

I was a bit nervous about whether or not the fabric would arrive to me in time since it had to cross the border and can often get stuck there. I am happy to report, I received this less than a week from when I ordered it! Hear me, Canada?? Less than a week! That’s worth keeping in mind for future orders.

Like the others have mentioned, my fabric came wrapped in that familiar paper of the patterns I grew up using. It was a bit nostalgic just opening that package. A big thanks to Dana for taking care of all our orders. She even had all my fabric laid out in front of her when I spoke to her so she could let me know how they all looked together. That is service. I’ll assume she was even smiling. 🙂

I started with a woven bodice made of a faux leather from Hart’s. Now, I’ll probably do this differently next time, but I’m still happy with how it turned out. It wasn’t quick, that’s for sure. I used a lot of double sided fusible tape for the strips of leather. Both to keep the edges folded over nicely and also to keep everything laying flat. There’s a good amount of stretch in this particular fabric so I also needed to interface each piece.

You can imagine that it was getting slightly bulky for seams, so instead of attaching the sleeves to the armholes as per normal, I cut the seam allowance off the bodice and bound the edges. The sleeves are attached to the binding and the lining just inside the armhole and then topstitched in place. I ended up with a bit of a “fooler sleeve”, if that’s a thing. I also bound the neckline that was rounded in the front to match the rosette appliqué. Somehow in this sewing experiment I even managed to hide all raw edges inside the dress!! I took that as a win. But please don’t confuse that as anything to do with the pattern itself! Following the actual instructions for this dress is very simple and you CAN do it! No matter what level you consider your abilities to be at.

The back of Pearl has a beautiful shape and a zipper!! It’s the first zipper pattern for Simple Life! I only had a invisible one on hand and it goes in a bit different, but you’ll find easy instructions in the pattern for installing your zipper.

I added a bit of length to the sleeve and a little bow at the wrist to match the sleeves of her sister’s dress.

The underskirt is out of the teal crepe back satin from Hart’s and there’s a layer of tulle attached to the underskirt just a little ways down from the waistline so that it wouldn’t have the bulk right at the waist. The top skirt sits just over 2″ shorter than the underskirt so the tulle can peek out just a bit. I added two rows of narrow ruffles at the bottom of the skirt which was, again, my way of matching the girls’ dresses. I just love narrow ruffles like these.

 

I also received some oyster crepe back satin in my Hart’s goodies. I knew I wanted to do something more, but had no idea what I would actually do. Eventually I decided I wanted a cape. Wouldn’t you know, Simple Life has the Juliette Capelet? I didn’t! I swear, I’ve been sewing with these patterns for a good while now and I’m still finding new patterns in their selection that I didn’t see before!

I happened to have this cream coloured fur fabric with sequins in my stash. Using the Juliette pattern I created a full circle for the cape and lengthened as long as my fabric would let me. I grabbed the hood pieces from a coat pattern I have and I could make a big story about how I did a lot of math to make sure it fit in the opening of the cape. But it just happened to fit exactly. I love it when that happens!

I, very purposely, made it a reversible cape. I can’t quite tell what side I like better. Instead of the tie I stitched a couple hook and eyes on the front and then for something a little fun I also hand stitched a small snap along the hem. When snapped it pulls the front up and over the shoulders.

When unsnapped it allows for some Enchanted Snow Hero action.

I hope you’ve been enjoying this tour and all the different creations from each of the ladies this week. I’ve made a few new friends by being a part of this and that’s one of my favourite things about blogging. I have a lot to learn from them. You can know they have all been challenged by each other to create their very best! Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could’ve done a big photo shoot with all these beauties together!??? I wish! Of course then we’d have to decide if we want to shoot beside the beautiful purple trees in Australia or the snowy bush in Canada. …. We’d be in Australia.

Be sure to check out all the ways to win! Keep your eyes open over on Instagram as well. Just a suggestion…. wink.

November 13 – Kainara Stitches – Ammon Lane

November 14 – Sew and Tell Project – Lace and Pine

November 15 – Sunflower Seams – SewSophieLynn

November 16 – Wonderfully Handmade – Idle Sunshine – I am Mami de Sofiona

November 17 – Pear Berry Lane – It’s Liesel

There are TWO ways to win in this giveaway!

While both giveaways are open to everyone, contestants outside of the U.S. will be responsible for any excess shipping and fees and subject to the sponsors’ shipping guidelines.

Enter the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win the following. One winner will be chosen at random after Rafflecopter closes.

1 winner of Rafflecopter of will receive:
5 Patterns of choice from Simple Life Pattern Co.
$50 Gift Card from Cotton Coterie with FREE shipping
$50 Gift Card from Little Feather

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Already sewing for the holidays with Simple Life Pattern Company? Share what you made for a chance to win the Link-Up prize! One winner will be chosen at random after the link-up closes.

1 Winner of the Link up will receive:
5 Patterns of choice from Simple Life Pattern Co.
$50 Gift Card to Harts Fabric
$50 Gift Card to Sincerely Rylee
$30 Gift Card to Punkin Head Threads