Hello creative needleworkers, hope you are all doing well wherever you are, it feels so great starting the new week at where feels right, this wonderful community has grown on me like a home, and I'm sure most of us here feel the same.
If you follow my blog, you would know that I'm an advocate for not throwing out leftover fabrics, instead, I will rather find a good use for them no matter how small, someone out there will appreciate you gifting them an outfit made with these leftovers, everyone loves a new outfit, don't you think so, so why trash them because they are leftovers, and the amazing thing is we can get creative and make something beautiful out of them.
The issue with storing leftover leftovers is that they begin to fill up space, it can be hard being a minimalist and a fashion designer, because it quickly gets messy when you start sewing, from shredded pieces of fabric on the floor, to the collection of fabrics you have plans to sew one day when the inspiration comes, and the fact remains that we never stop buying new fabrics, there will always be one fabric we can't look past at a fabric store.
For my sanity as a minimalist, I try to declutter any leftover fabric as soon as I have the opportunity, instead of just storing them, so today, I will be sharing with us the dress I made for a little girl of 2 years in my neighborhood, using the leftover ankara print I used in making myself a dress some months back. What I do when I don't have much fabric is to combine it with another fabric making sure to design it beautifully.
This time, I made a sleeveless A-line dress, combining a plain black crepe fabric with ankara fabric, It is a very easy-to-make dress.
Cutting and Sewing Process
- Starting, I drafted and cut out an A-line pattern of the upper front and back part of the dress in bias form (folded in a triangular shape) using the plain crepe fabric.
- Next, I piped the neckline of the front and back pattern using the Ankara cut-out strips, slanting the middle of the back a bit before piping, this is for easy passage of the neck, I also added a button loop
- Continuing, I joined the front and back pattern by the shoulders and also piped around both armholes, after which I sewed both sides of the dress.
- for the base of the dress, I measured round the hem of the dres, and cut out a long strip of the ankara fabric by tripling the hem length.
- Next, I gathered the ankara strip, to the exact measurement of the hem, before sewing it to the upper side of the dress.
- Now, to add a bit of fun/drama to the dress, I decided to attach 3 bows, also made with the African print fabric, look how pretty the dress looks. A beautiful princess has a new dress.
Here is the final look.
What do you think about this dress, will you be making one too, or would let your little one adorn a dress like this? let me know.
All images used in this post are mine