Miss Edith and Miss Madeline have a playdate

Ok, I know I promised to post the other day, but I got sidetracked, then yesterday a great friend of mine came and borrowed my two littlest boys all day so that I could work. I got SO much prep work done for my upcoming show, but man I was tired!

Anyway, my two most recent finishes are the Miss Madeline dress by The Handmade Dress. Samantha is SO sweet, I couldn't wait to try her patterns out. To make this dress, I used a jelly roll (appx. 40 2 1/2" strips all rolled up together) of Japanese fabrics for the base. I sewed all the strips together to create yardage, then cut the pattern out. I used a matching red solid for the sleeves and waistband. The ribbon at the waist is a Farbenmix Little Red Riding Hood print that was in my stash waiting for the perfect project and I think this was it! I absolutely LOVE how this turned out.

The pattern was relatively simple to sew for someone with some sewing experience, and would be plenty easy for a beginner as well although there may be a bit of trial and error involved in a few portions. Overall though, a great quick sew (unless you're sewing together a massive amount of 2 1/2" strips!) and an adorable turnout. I have the rest of her patterns either already in my stash or on order right now, so I'll tackle those soon!!!

The second one is the Miss Edith Twirl skirt by Jona from Fabritopia. This is an awesome skirt with some serious twirlability. I used the super popular Apples & pears fabric which has been languishing in my stash for over a year (gasp! the horror!), and paired it up with a cute pink tone on tone print and pale yellow polka dot, then I used Amy Butler Happy dots for the binding. This was a GREAT pattern! Very easy to follow, the only real change I made was the ruffle on the underskirt. The length of fabric the pattern calls for to make it ends up with a barely ruffled ruffle, and I like the tightly gathered look so I added an additional strip. This one will definitely be made often as well, there are SO many things you can do with it!

On the t-shirt, I finally conquered using my new embroidery machine on a knit fabric. Most of the problem was operator error, not the machine..but I really like the apples and pear design on the chest. Both of these items are up on Hyena Cart if you're interested!

So what new things have you tried lately? Any great new patterns you've worked with? Old favorites? Clue me in!