Secret Squirrel sew-along - October

I cannot believe how excited I get about the 1st of each months since Suz of Sewpony and An of Straightgrain introduced Secret Squirrel to the blogworld! The host of the month and their creation are revealed on the 1st of every month. This is such a fun challenge. I enjoy seeing how every participant interprets the acorns of inspiration and all the wonderful outfits created by my fellow sewaholics. If you have never heard of the Secret Squirrel challenge before, please read about it and jump on board. I promise you will get hooked! I sure did. You can see my previous Secret Squirrel creations here and here. You are also welcome to visit Secret Squirrel Flickr group to see what other participants made.

The five acorns of inspiration for October were:

Green.   The Little Prince.   Bias.   Zooey Deschanel.   Shark.

While she was sleeping, I made a new dress for my daughter that incorporated all five acorns of inspiration.

 

When I saw the acorns for the first time I thought it would be very difficult to incorporate them all in one outfit. To start with, I had no idea who Zooey Deschanel was. After putting her name in Google search I realised she was a singer. I thought I would get some inspiration from her songs, so I spent some time on YouTube. I loved her voice but did not become a fan of the band (sorry Zooey). I checked a few images, and then it happened. Inspiration came. Zooey looks stunning in feminine vintage inspired and yet modern outfits. I knew I had to use the Sabrina dress pattern designed by Puperita for this month's challenge.

I went into my sewing room to see what fabric I had. How lucky! I had green fabric with roses and birds printed on them. Why lucky you wonder? Because this fabric was green, and the Little Prince had a very special rose, remember? I also had a little star shaped button the same shade of green as the fabric (the Little Prince again). My daughter loves birds, which is bonus.

Lovely lace on the bodice of the dress represents sharp teeth of a shark.

I had an idea of how to embellish the bodice using lace and bias tape, but when I actually put them together it looked wrong. Bias tape looked too thick, boring and did not compliment lace at all. I spent some time playing with lace and bias tape trying to find a solution. When I folded bias tape in half it actually looked good. I got to play with fancy stitches on my machine for the first time and I think the final result is pretty.

The curved skirt is my favourite feature of this pattern. Puperita gives very good instructions on how to hem a curved skirt. I could have easily followed her instructions, but my sewing machine has a rolled hem foot, and I never had an excuse to play with it before! What a brilliant opportunity to try a new technique! I had a practice go using a scrap of fabric. I expected it to be very difficult, however it was surprisingly easy! I went slow while hemming the skirt using a rolled hem foot. I had to use a usual zig zag foot to hem the skirt over the side seams as fabric got too thick and did not feed through the rolled hem foot. A rookie mistake? Anyway, I thought changing machine feet was worth it in the end. I was very proud of my first rolled hem.

Five acorns of inspiration, one new outfit for my Little Monkey. What do you think about it?