Frida Tute

I love this little dress - it's designed by Patty Young and you can see it here It's a lovely crisp and clean little girls dress and best of all it's fairly easy to sew.

However my iron and I don't always see eye to eye and I have limited time to create things, given I sew for a living, so I'm always on the look out for quicker ways to do things.

So I've got a couple of tips for those that dislike the iron as much as I do. Please be aware this tute is fairly pic heavy and I did cull them lol!! And because my camera and I are having words at the moment, some of them are a touch blurry, but hopefully you get the idea.

Frida Tute, originally uploaded by elizajanes1.

Working from right to left.

1. The ties - I use a fasturn device . I made my ties 1 inch wide and 10 inches long and cut on the bias. Sewn from end to end, using a small 1/8 inch seam allowance. Insert the fasturn and pull through. Then press from the wrong side, with the seam in the middle of your piece.

2. The sleeves - I used 6mm elastic and trimmed back my seam allowance to a skant 3mm.

3. The bodice turned, pressed and topstitched.

4. Pin in the sleeves and the ties - making sure that the ties/sleeves are right sides together on the right side of your bodice. Matching centres on the sleeves/bodice. Make sure that you only pin through the top layer (the dotty one in my example)

5. Baste the ties and sleeves in using a slightly longer stitch than normal and basting it approximately 1cm in. Then lay your bodice as shown. The dotty side in my right side out.

6/7/8. Bring the right side of the lining (green), under from the right to the left. Squeezing the fabric down in the centre, making sure that all is flat and even. So you'll bring the right side of the lining fabric up and match it to the right side of the right fabric. Matching shoulder seams first and then pinning all the way along. So you have a sausage.

9. Sew the seam down with 1/2 inch seam as specified in the instructions.

10. Gently start to pull the bodice out through the opening.

11. Bodice pulled through. Press evenly and then repeat for the other side.

12. The completed bodice.

If you go to my flickr account, you can see larger photos of those above.