Spring Into Color: It's ALL Purple

It has been WAY WAY WAY (a whole lot more ways) too long since my last real blog post. But if there was ever going to be something to get me out of my hiatus, I can promise you, PURPLE would be it. So what am I talking about?

The Spring Into Color Tour!

The spring into color tour is ALL about the Pantone Spring Color Chart for Spring 2018. If you aren't aware, here's the chart:

I LOVE purple. And this season's chart gives me 3 shades to choose from. 3! <SQUEE>. As a shop owner, I'm doubly lucky. Because I love purple of course my shop has LOTS of selection! You can check that out here if you want. 

Of all the fabrics in my shop, the one that gets the least love is our stretch poplin. I think it is because people don't know WHAT to do with it! And I have a little girl that needs a new dress, like she needs a hole in her head. So of course I wanted to sew her a dress, LOL.

My real struggle wasn't in the sewing, or fabric choosing. The struggle was which dress was worthy of this fabric AND best fit my daughter's personality!

For those that are wondering, poplin is a great "crisp" fabric. So anywhere you would use a quilting cotton, it works great. It takes pleats like a dream. And top stitching really pops on this fabric.

As I was picking out my pattern, I considered a LOT of options. Patterns with pretty backs and fun skirt designs. Strappy summer dresses and maxi dresses. But the winner was the Bella Sunshine Designs Coffee Shop Lace Dress. The extra cool part? It is on sale (30% off) through Sunday March 11th. No coupon code needed!

So what drew my eye to this dress? #1- lace. Simply By Ti has a small selection of lace and I knew that this dress needed our lace. #2- simplicity. This dress doesn't require fancy fabric to be a show stopper. It is fabulous because of its simple lines and accents. That makes it perfect for a solid fabric like the purple poplin. For the inset panel, I dipped into my scrap bin (the panel is fairly small) and found this cute unicorn print. Perfect.

This dress is REALLY well drafted, which made it easy to adjust sizing. I had to make the 5 length and 3 width for my little mini. I actually could have gone even smaller in the width, but I wanted to have some room to grow. The cool thing about this dress is that you can skip the center panel and lace and make a great little square front neckline dress too! Included in the pattern are a proper skirt placket, and a sleeve that is eased into the armscye. The pattern has you tuck the lace into the back neckline which creates a fabulous finish. However, it was a bit of a pain (perhaps I was inpatient) and involved a bit of seam ripping <grr>. But the finishing is perfection.

And, as part of my learning curve on this dress, I learned to sew buttons in with my sewing machine! Yay. If you haven't tried it on your machine, you should. It is fun AND fast!

For my fancy girl, this was a great pattern with a great fabric. And I have to admit, I can't wait to sew ALL the purple things. Which colors are you most drawn to this season.

Thursday, March 1st: Sewing By Ti- Intro
2nd: Tenille's Thread

Monday, March 5th: Confessions of the Pink Obsessed
6th: Sewn By Lone
7th: Sewing By Ti, Stylin Stacy
8th: EYMM
9th: Stitched by Jennie
10th: Elli and Nels

Sunday, March 11th: Make it Sew with the Bear and Pea Atelier
12th: Very Blissful
13th: My Heart Will Sew On
14th: Sewing Blue
15th: Seams Like Style
16th: Kate Will Knit
17th: Twinado Alley

Sunday March 18th: Mermaids Den
19th: My Sewing Roots
20th: Our Play Palace
21st: Kathys Kwilts and More
22nd: The Fairy Dust Bin
23rd: Oak Blue Designs
24th: Aurora Designs Fabrics

Sunday March 25th: Flaxfield Sewing
26th: Seams Sew Lo
27th: Ma Moose
28th: Back 40 Life
29th: Auschick Sews
30th: Manning the Machine
31st: Mermaids Den