Vacation Sewing, completed

The leaves are falling and the days are growing shorter - so time to finish my summer sewing.  I am back from Hawaii, having finished 3 dresses which I started in my previous post, Vacation Sewing - Seam binding minus the Serger.

Here are the finished dresses, all made with New Look 6643.   I am really happy with the ruffles and now I am deciding on something for myself with this ruffle look.    

Below see the "raw" ruffle, this fabric was a bit bulky so I made a tube by sewing the print fabric to black lining, which allowed for crisply pressed edges with no stitching showing.  On a silk or other thinner fabric I would just turn a very narrow hem, which is what I did on the red dress below.  I stitched a machine baste down the center of the tube, breaking about every 12 inches to make it easier to draw up the ruffle.  

FYI, the ungathered ruffle is about 2 times as long as the neck opening.  Perhaps on the original Kate Spade dress it was even less ruffley (is that a word?)  but 2 times is a good starting point.

I also did a print dress with a different neckline,  kind of a V-notch in the center.   Did this by 
marking the center front and creating the V, about a 1.5 inch opening.  The only tricky feature of this neckline is getting the point just right,  the key here is to create a tiny U instead of a V with super small stitches at the bottom of the opening, which when trimmed and turned, looks very crisp.

And then the red one, similar to the Kate Spade ruffle-neck dress that started this project.

I am not crazy about how it looks in this photo - looks like the darts are unpressed, but in person we were very happy with it, and the color is a perfect cranberry red that says "holiday party dress".

So I love it when someone wants more than one item that is from the same pattern.

Carol was quite happy to have 3 new dresses - so much so that she went and bought 4 more fabrics.   I have finished 2 this week, and then 2 more soon.  Time to start on sewing for fall.

Plus I have a wedding to go to in October, and my sis wants me to make her something for that as well.  

Today's SunnyGal Garden photo - one of my wildest garden triumphs ever, but not in the garden at my house, but at my sister's on Oahu.  Over a year ago - we ate a delicious Hawaiian pineapple, and my mom said, plant the top and see if it will grow.  Ha, ha, we all said, but I stuck it in the dirt in a planter box.  And more than a year later - this was the result.   It was starting to tip over a bit, and it was small, but the color was looking ripe and the fragrance was beautiful.  So we harvested it and ate it.  Surprisingly delicious.  The last photo shows off our petite pineapple on the counter, not big, but oh so cute.