Hi there ~ I'm so glad you've made your way to The Cottage Home! My name is Lindsay and I'm a wife and mother of three young children. I love cooking, sewing, crafting and all things domestic. I am truly passionate about the handmade lifestyle and hope to inspire this passion in others through the projects and ideas here on the blog. In addition to writing The Cottage Home, I design unique children's sewing patterns and clothing that I sell through my shop, The Cottage Mama. Thanks for visiting my little corner of the world. I hope you like what you see. To read more, click on the 'About' section above.
It's another Fabric Friday here at The Cottage Mama and we've got a great giveaway today from one of our lovely blog sponsors, Southern Fabric.
Southern Fabric carries a wonderful variety of designer quilting cotton fabric from some of my very favorite designers. If you've never visited their shop, you need to head over there and check it out.......but be careful, you'll want to buy one of everything!
They are having a great Memorial Day sale going on right now. Today is the last day to take advantage, so if you are in the market for some gorgeous new fabric, I suggest you head on over and check out some of the fantastic deals. You can visit Souther Fabric by clicking HERE.
I have had my eye on this line 'Happy-Go-Lucky' by Bonnie and Camille for Moda Fabrics ever since I saw a preview of it. I am really drawn to navy blue right now and I love the mix of brighter colors with some of the deeper blue tones in this line.
On the more juvenile front, I love this print from the 'Apple Jacks' line. My little guy is really into all kinds of vehicles right now and this would be just perfect for him.
There are so many gorgeous fabrics to be found over at Southern Fabric. And today one lucky winner is going to win a $50.00 gift certificate to Southern Fabric to spend on anything you would like.
To stay up to date with new patterns, tutorials, giveaways and more, please sign up for the NEW The Cottage Mama newsletter starting in June.
Giveaway will be open until Monday, June 3, 2013 at Midnight (CST).
Yesterday I shared the first round of Georgia Vintage Dress testers with you and today I'm back to share with you another great group of testers. All of these dresses were created from the Georgia Vintage Dress pattern by The Cottage Mama which can be found here.
This dress was made by Ellen Balzer (www.ellzabelle.com) who sewed View C of the Georgia Vintage Dress. This is the sleeveless variation that lends a more modern feel to the dress. She selected this gorgeous, bold print that works so beautiful on her little girl.
Here we have Miss Eliza wearing her dress made by her mama, Michelle from Handmade Martini. Michelle and I met when she took a class from me at the Martha Pullen School of Art Fashion. I absolutely adore the fabric pairing and placement on this little dress. She actually just opened her Etsy shop and is selling some adorable new children's clothes. You can check out her shop here.
Here is a lovely version of the Georgia Vintage Dress by Trisha Parker (www.sweetnsassygirls.com). The colors and patterns used in this dress are some of my favorite and the pink piping and buttons bring the entire look together. Her daughter looks so precious in this look.
I adore this dress on a baby girl......it's just so sweet! This dress was made by Courtney Davis from Sweeter Than Cupcakes. The soft colors and light pink baby pom-pom trim make this a perfect dress for one of our smaller little ladies.
Both the baby and little girl (pictured above) were created by Cindy Nooner. These dresses just melted my heart. The darling apple applique on the bodice is simply perfect and it's made from the 'Apple of My Eye' fabric line from Riley Blake Designs. Such sweet perfection.
This beautiful red and white dress was created by Karen Evanoff (www.andthepiecesfit.blogspot.com). She used rick-rack trim in place of the piping and created rick-rack flowers with buttons in the center down the front. These colors are just perfect for summer!
And finally, I'll leave you with one of our tiniest little testers. This dress was created by Danae from Head over Heels and looks so sweet on this adorable baby girl. The mixing and matching of eyelet fabric and woven cotton and the addition of pearl buttons makes this dress perfect for a tiny little princess!
So I'll stop there, but will you believe me when I tell you that wasn't even all the testers? There were just too many to share, but they all did such a fantastic job and I couldn't be more proud of their creations!
Next week, I'll be releasing my second pattern in this summer collection and I can't wait to share with you! And check back tomorrow because we have a really great fabric giveaway coming up from one of our lovely blog sponsors.
As I announced in my post yesterday, the Georgia Vintage Dress Pattern (Size 6 Month - 10 Years) is now available for sale as a downloadable PDF and you can find it sold here.
One of the most important factors in pattern design is fit. It doesn't matter what the cover of a pattern looks like, but if the customers that purchase that pattern can recreate what's on the cover, then the pattern is a fail. In order to ensure a great fit and a well instructed pattern, I enlisted the help of a wonderful group of pattern testers. Some of them are bloggers, some have their own Etsy shops, and some are mom's and grandma's that just love to sew.
I went went through many different emails of folks applying for this open call that I made over on The Cottage Mama Facebook page and I was pretty certain that I had put together a good group. What I didn't know, is that I had put together a truly wonderful group of women. Not only did these women do a fantastic job testing and giving feedback on this pattern, but they are genuinely a kind, supportive and incredibly talented bunch. There are 43 of them total that are divided up testing each of the four patterns releasing over the next several weeks.
I am SO incredibly proud of what they created from the Georgia Vintage Dress pattern that I just can't wait to show you!
First up, we have our tester, Hayley, from Welcome to the Mouse House. In her version, she added in a fourth fabric and used jumbo rick-rack trim instead of piping on the bib. The colors and fabric she chose are just stunning and her little lady looks so adorable in her dress.
This Georgia Vintage Dress was from Natalie Cooper. Her choice of more subtle fabrics in softer colors with these gorgeous floral buttons give a true vintage feel to this dress.
This dress was by Amy Fournier from Ellie-Jayne Designs and it actually fit both her girls. The first few pictures of Amy's daughter show the dress with a slightly longer hem (that has since been shortened) and this final pictures is of her other darling little lady. The use of contrasting fabrics really make all the details of this dress pop.
Here we have sweet Lily modeling the dress made by her mom, Julie from Crafts for Lily. She selected these gorgeous soft colors that look perfect on Lily. And her mixing and matching of patterned prints is spot on.
Ayelet from The Graceful Rose tested one of our larger sizes for her daughter using View B, a sleeveless variation. This lends a slightly more modern look to the pattern and the gorgeous Joel Dewberry fabric she used is fantastic!
This gorgeous dress is from Judy Brock who used a beautiful combination of white, yellow and blue for her Georgia Vintage Dress.
So what do you think? Didn't these testers do such a lovely job? I've got a whole other group of photos to show you tomorrow that I think you'll love as well.
The ladies created these dresses all on their own simply following the pattern instructions. Sometimes I think people feel my patterns can look a little tricky, like there would be no way they could recreate the look on their own. But you can! The instructions are straight-forward and enable confident beginners to create an identical design to the cover and will help you along with your sewing technique. If you've never tried a The Cottage Mama Sewing Pattern, I encourage you to give one a try.........I'm pretty sure you're going to like it.
If you would like to purchase the new Georgia Vintage Dress (Size 6 Month - 10 Years), you can find the pattern HERE.
And if you would like to stay up to date with current pattern releases, tutorials, recipes and more, please sign up for the NEW The Cottage Mama newsletter that will be starting next month! Sign up below.
Can I tell you how hard it is to keep a secret from you all? It's the hardest because I just love, love, love sharing with you. I have been working really hard these last several months getting my next collection of sewing patterns ready to go and today I am thrilled to share my first of four new patterns with you! I will be releasing the four patterns over the next several weeks in PDF form and they will all be available in printed, hardcopy form by the end of June.
This first pattern, the Georgia Vintage Dress, is probably the pattern I am most proud of creating since I started designing sewing patterns. I hope you love it as much as I do!
The Georgia Vintage Dress
SIZE 6 MONTH - 10 YEARS
DESCRIPTION: The Georgia Vintage Dress was inspired by a favorite dress worn by my
mother in the late 1950’s. It is a dress with many possibilities and options,
yet has timeless classic appeal. View A, the Georgia Vintage Dress, features a
piped bib front bodice finished with decorative buttons and sweet pointed
collar. The skirt is double layered for extra fullness and has a waist sash
that is gathered on the sides for a large bow tied in the back of the dress.
Dress closes with buttons on the bodice back. View B is the Georgia Vintage
Dress without the bib front. View C, features the Georgia Vintage Dress without
the ruffle sleeve and View D, mirrors View A, yet features a single layer
skirt. There are so many ways to use this pattern and you will have many
opportunities to make it your own.
All design variations have a fully lined bodice and include French seams
in the skirt for total comfort for your little one. This is great pattern for
confident beginner sewers and offers many ways to get creative with your
design!
There are four official variations included in the pattern, but there are so many possibilities! You can mix and match the different pieces to create a truly unique, one-of-a-kind look.
This is my little Matilda modeling the Georgia Vintage Dress, View A in Size 4T. When I photographed her in this dress, she just felt so special and pretty. I could tell by her demeanor. It was a sweet time for us.
View A, B and D all feature a sweet flutter sleeve. And View C is a sleeveless option that is perfect for the older little ladies or those that aren't a big fan of ruffles.
The front bib detail is trimmed out with piping on the sides and three sweet buttons down the front. You can choose to use any trim you would like in place of the piping or eliminate the trim completely. I can't wait to show you some of the pattern testers versions with different trim options. The sweet, pointed peter-pan collar really adds to the timeless, classic appeal of this dress.
All design variations feature a large bow that is tied in the back of the dress. It is gathered at the sides and makes this dress as sweet in the back as it is in the front.
The Georgia Vintage Dress Pattern is now available for sale in PDF form. If you aren't familiar with PDF patterns, they are patterns that you print on your home computer, tape the pieces together to form the full pattern sheet. The beauty of PDF patterns is that they are available for instant download, so no need to wait to get sewing and you can print them out time and time again (no tracing)! Plus they are a little less expensive then the printed version and you avoid paying shipping. The four patterns that are releasing over the next several weeks are also formatted for our international customers to print on A4 paper. Like I said above, the patterns will be available for sale in print at the end of June, so no worries for our printed paper pattern fans!
I have worked for weeks with an amazing group of pattern testers perfecting this pattern and throughout this next week I will be showing you some of their incredible Georgia Vintage Dress creations. I am always in awe of the talent that surrounds us here in the online sewing community and I think you will definitely be inspired by some of their adorable little dresses.
