Free For All

Have you heard about the Free For All yet?  I’m super excited!  All through the month of February, Frances Suzanne is hosting a month of free patterns from all over the internet.  There are a ton of great blogs that will each showcase a free pattern or tutorial for you.  There is also a great link party going.  Be sure to go check it out and join in!

 

Today, I’ll show you what I did with one of my favorite tutorials EVER!  I’ve had this pinned for eons.  I just love looking at it, but I loved actually making a dress from it even better!  Seriously, how can you go wrong with a high waisted, nautical inspired number?  YOU CAN’T!  What makes it even better is the great tutorial that goes with it.

iCandy Handmade has several wonderful tutorials, in fact pages of them.  Pages for women and children alike.  You should take a look if you don’t already have everything pinned to your boards on pinterest.  Another favorite that I’ve been wanting to try is her Winter Rose Dress.  There is so much you can do with it!

For my dress, I chose the Sailing into Autumn Dress tutorial.  I love everything about the original dress and could have happily copied it so that I had such a beauty hanging in my closet, but..well…it’s not autumn.  I like to imagine it’s spring.  Keeping with the nautical inspiration, I chose navy for the top, but I went with a lovely emerald green for the skirt.  I also used free motion embroidery to add some fun “buttons” to the waist band.  She’s pointing at them just for you.

 

 

I did the bow a bit differently too.  I put a small white bow on the shoulder because my neckline was higher and I wanted to keep the assymetrical look of the original but I wanted less weight in the front.

The back of my dress has ten little white buttons.  TEN!  Kind of a pain to get off and on, but I just love buttons so it’s a sacrifice I make.  The original tutorial uses a zipper in the back, but zippers hate me and my machine hates them so it’s really a very dangerous situation when the three of us get together.

The bodice I used has buttons, so I just kept them and all three of us (my machine, the lonely zipper and me) could be happy.

 

I also pleated my dress because I’ve recently developed a love affair with pleats and it’s not likely to end any time soon.  Expect more pleats in the future!

 

I know I can’t wait to see what everyone else does with the freebies this month!  There are a lot of great blogs lined up to share with you.

A few of my favorite tutorials besides the amazing iCandy Handmade‘s are on my pinterest board and I have a few tutorials here on my blog as well.  I’ll be adding more as I find time too.  In the meantime, check out a few of these and let me know in the comments what your favorites are.  Don’t forget the link party either!

 

 

 

xopinkboutique’s romper tutorial using two brownie goose patterns

 

 Make your own screen print out of ordinary household crafting items like McGuyver

 

Make your own fabric labels

And here are a couple more photos of my daughter because I think she’s cute.