#needleworkmonday :: the little dress with little red flowers

My mother enjoyed wearing the few that I made for her previously with the latest ones, made using her old bedsheet covers.

This round, I thought to make her another with a nicer fabric with improved and neater sewing, so that she can wear out to the pool or to the market.



I found this fabric, selling at a local online store, at a discounted price of USD2 per meter. Little flowers and dark red colour, looks quite pretty.



I started by placing her old dress which I was using as template, just to make sure I have enough fabric around to cut.



Then, I folded the dress into half and cut out the fabric with about 2 inches allowance all around. Folding the fabric and dress into half, ensures that the cut out fabric is equal in length and shape.



For an improved sewing method, I decided to work an invisible seam around the sides of the dress, to make it sturdier.
First, I sew on the right side with wrong sides facing each other.



Then, I folded the sewing inside out and pressed the seams flat.



With the right sides facing, I sewed on the wrong side of the fabric all along the sides (which was sewn earlier and pressed flat) to hide the seams.



This is pretty much how the raw edges are hidden within the sewn seams.



And there is no raw edges sticking out at the end of it. This is an alternative to edge sewing which prevents fraying but do bear in mind that more fabric is needed for this type of hemming.



Once I have sewn on both sides of the dress, I hemmed the bottom of the dress, double folded it to about 1.5cm in length.



Then came the tricky armhole and shoulder hemming. As the armhole curves quite sharply, I did this slowly by folding double but at about 0.5cm in length and carefully sew it all around, at the edges of the folds.



The hemming was still not as good as I hope for it to be but the fabric kind of hides the crumpled edges :D



For the strap, instead of using lace, I decided to use some ready made bias tapes.



To prepare the bias tapes, I folded the bias tape and hemmed the edges (right sides facing) first to prevent fraying.



Next, I sewed the sides (wrong sides facing) to close up the raw edges all along the center of the bias tape. I prepared 2 sets of this for the 2 straps.



Once it was done, it looked quite decent as straps.



The last part was to sew the straps onto the dress on all 4 corners of the shoulder part.



I like the fabric for this little dress and I hope my mother likes it too :)

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Here's wishing everyone a good week ahead and
Happy #NeedleWorkMonday! Take care!

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