GYCT Designs Spring Dress Blog Tour

Bonjour. Bienvenue. It’s Day 3 of the GYCT Designs Spring Dress Tour sponsored by Sunshine Rae Fabric! Thanks for stopping by the blog today. There’s a giveaway at the end of this blog post. Don’t forget to enter for your chance to win a $20 shop credit from Sunshine Rae Fabrics and two patterns from GYCT!

Apparently spring is coming. I know. Hard to believe with the snow fall warning we had over the weekend. But, the calendar says it is right around the corner. It’s time to bust out the spring dress patterns. Maybe that will encourage the snow to melt faster.

Last obnoxious frame, promise! For this blog tour I sewed up the Poinsettia Party Dress pattern for my Elle Belle. I had originally picked out some teal raw silk to make the dress. The final result would have been a much more formal look. My good friend, Robin, stopped by with a bag of fabric and it screamed spring to me. I was a little worried that the fabrics would be too crazy together and waffles back and forth between the orange and green being bodice or top skirt. But, I think the final result is the perfect blend of crazy and happy. And that says Elle Belle to me. And of course spring too. The Poinsettia can be made with a knee or mid-calf length skirt. It can be made sleeveless or with gathered short sleeves, or long sleeves. I think you can tell which options I went with fairly easily. Alright. Time for the sewing confessions. I confess that I accidentally folded the bow piece the wrong way. I honestly think it just made it wider as opposed to taller. And that’s totally cool.

Speaking of the bow…. I confess that it is on the “wrong” side. All the photos and the instructions have the bow on the side with the short end of the top skirt. It just didn’t look right to me. I tried. I was just going to put it on the “right” side, and follow the instructions. But the bow wanted to be on the “wrong” side. Sometimes, you have to use the pattern as a jumping off point and let the fabric guide you. It’s getting a little too voodoo, let your spirit fabric guide you, up in here.

Gosh, I love the florals and butterflies of this fabric. Guess what else I have to confess? I confess that I did NOT line the bodice. SHOCK! GASP! CLUTCH MY PEARLS! It’s true. I didn’t. Seams don’t bother me. They don’t bother her. I figured I’d throw caution to the wind and see what happened if I didn’t line it. I’ll tell you what happened at the end.

What else? I know there were a few more things I played around with. I cut the front skirt and top skirt pieces almost the full width of the fabric instead of the listed width. I also pleated my skirts instead of gathering. Oh man. I thought I was so smart doing that. I have a tremor in my hand, (and I suspect early onset arthritis), and after chipping away at ice and hard packed snow all afternoon, my tremor was crazy obnoxious! In all my brilliance, I decided that pulling gathering threads would hurt too much, and pleats would be easier. I am a moron! There is so much pinning with pleats! But, I loooooove a cute pleat! Worth it!

I went with snaps instead of buttons. ONLY BECAUSE my machine was being fussy and I had to pick out one buttonhole, and my hand wanted to secede from the rest of me. Snaps seemed the better option than risk unpicking an ugly buttonhole. I will go on the record to say that I do prefer the look of buttons to snaps though. Fortunately these snaps had cute dragonflies on them that I felt matched the whole dress.

This was her pose choice. She’s a ham bone for sure.

Thanks for stopping by the blog today. Don’t forget to check out all the other stops along the tour. Three things to take notes of. 1: There’s a giveaway. Enter it. 2: Use code SPRINGTOUR and get 15% off your entire GYCT Designs purchase. 3: When you sew barefoot, you’ll eventually step on a pin. That’s all from me for today. Thanks again.

Our Play Palace  *  Elli and Nels  *  Max California

Tales From A Southern Mom  *  Phat Quarters  *  Darrel Rob Crafts  *  GYCT Designs

Threadistry  *  Sprouting Jube Jube  *  Manning the Machine

My Sewing Roots  *  House of Estrela  *  The Berry Bunch

Kathy’s Kwilts and More  *  Paisley Roots  *  Aurora Designs  *  Natalie Bug Creations

Sponsored By

Sunshine Rae Fabric

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Oh. Did I say that was the end. Yeah. No. Don’t you want to know what happens when you combine: an unlined bodice + snaps + a five year old that can’t undo the snaps on her own.

She ripped it right off. I am gutted. I don’t even know what to do.