Easy Knot Dress ~ Free Pattern and Tutorial

I love an easy sundress, don't you? It's still pretty cold and snowy around here in Chicago, but I'm already dreaming about spring. The minute I saw the Little Matroyshka fabric in the Riley Blake Designs catalog, I knew I must use this fabric for my girls. I love the little nesting dolls and the different coordinating prints. Savannah, my oldest, is becoming quite picky about her clothing loved this line too so I was happy to be able to use it to make her a dress for our upcoming (hopefully soon) warmer weather. But until then, she can still wear it layered with a long sleeved shirt and tights or leggings.

This Easy Knot Dress tutorial is an adaptation of my free pattern, the 'Summer Picnic Dress'. This dress comes together in an afternoon and is age appropriate for itty bitty girls and a little bit older girls as well. The free pattern is offered in size 12m - Size 4, but can easily be sized up or down by adjusting the chest width and dress length.

Pattern Adjustment (sizing up): I sized the dress up from a size 4 to a size 6 by simply adding 1" to the yoke and facing pattern pieces to the side that says 'fold', 2 inches to the length of the main dress and an additional 1" to the longer ruffle. By adding 1" to the yoke and facing pieces, that gave me an additional 2" across the chest because the piece is cut on the fold. Another great option when drafting a sewing pattern up or down, is to use a piece of clothing your child already owns and you know fits well and use that to compare to your pattern to make sure your adjustments are accurate.

Easy Knot Dress
SIZE 12 MONTH - SIZE 4

A Free Pattern from The Cottage Mama for Riley Blake Designs

MATERIALS:

1 - 1.5 yards of fabric (cotton, seersucker, linen, lined eyelet, denim, ect).

1/2 yard - 3/4 yard rickrack or other trim 
Baby cording (if adding piping)
Double Sided Fusible Interfacing (i.e. Steam-A-Seam Lite 2)

Basic Sewing Supplies 
For the Easy Knot Dress print the Summer Picnic Dress Pattern (print HERE).

INSTRUCTIONS:

For the easy knot dress you will need to print the Summer Picnic Dress Pattern (print HERE).  Cut out the appropriate size and tape together the main dress piece.  There are four pieces for the main dress that need to be put together.  Overlap the pattern pieces at the solid lines to form the main dress pattern piece. See the final page of the printable pattern for a diagram.

If you have any trouble printing the pattern, please check your printer settings.  I have printed it out many times on my own home printer, so it should print properly. Make sure your printer is set to NO scaling.

Cut all pieces according to pattern.  You should have the following pieces cut using the pattern:

2 - Main Dress

2 - Yoke Pieces

2 - Facings 

For the pocket, cut two squares according to these measurements:
Size 12 Month & 2T: 4" x 4"
Size 3T and up: 5" x 5" 

For the straps, cut 2 rectangles according to these measurements:

Size 12 Month & 2T: 15" x 4.5"

Size  3T & 4T: 17" x 5"
*If you would prefer a shorter strap, by all means, just reduce the length measurement.

For the bottom ruffles, cut 2 ON THE FOLD* of each of the following:

Size 12 Month & 2T: 3"x 18" and 4" x 18"

Size 3T & 4T (also used for size 6, if sizing up): 4" x 22" and 5" x 22"

*The measurements for the ruffles given above are the measurement on the fold, not the long finished piece measurement. Again, cut 2 of each on the fold of the measurements given. You will end up with four pieces for the double ruffle.

ALL SEAM ALLOWANCES 1/2'', UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.

 

For the pocket, cut your two squares. Find an item in your home with a rounded edge and use that as your template for cutting the two rounded corners. Round two of the corners on both pocket pieces.

Add the doll to the pocket. Apply double sided fusible interfacing (I like Steam-A-Seam Lite 2) to the back of a piece of the nesting doll fabric. Once you have applied one side of the interfacing, cut out the doll. Remove the paper backing, position on pocket and press to fuse the doll to the pocket. Using a satin stitch or your favorite applique stitch, sew all the way around the doll with embroidery thread.

Insert the rick rack into the pocket. This is completely optional as you can definitely skip this step if you would like. Line up the rick rack with the edge of the pocket and hold in place by using Wash Away Wonder Tape or pins. If you are using pins, baste stitch the rick rack in place before adding the other side of the pocket. But if you use the wonder tape, no basting is necessary.

Place the other pocket piece on top with the right sides together and sew all the way around the pocket, leaving a slight opening on the side of the pocket. Check the size of your trim. If you are using a larger or smaller rick rack then you might need to adjust the placement so that your 1/2" seam allowance will have the little edge of the rick rack poking through. If you are using standard rick rack, it should work just perfectly.

Clip the corners and notch out the curves of the pocket. Turn the pocket right side out by pulling the fabric through the opening.

Once your pocket is turned right side out, press it so that it lays nice and flat. Make sure to press under the little opening in the side of the pocket.

Pin the pocket to the dress. The placement is entirely up to you. Just place it where you think it would look good. Sew the pocket to the dress, leaving the top edge open. Make sure to sew some reinforcement stitching to the top corners of the pocket (kids can be really hard on pockets). Once you have sewn around the pocket, the topstitching will have closed the little opening on the side.

You will need two straps for the knot dress. For the ends of the straps, cut them so that they make a point. Fold the strap in half, with the right sides together. Sew down the long side and to one of the points. Leave the short, straight edge open. Turn the strap right side out and press. Topstitch or Edge stitch around the strap. Do this for both strap pieces.

If you would like to add piping in the seam between the yoke and the main dress, you can check out my piping tutorials. For how to make your own piping, click HERE and for how to insert piping, click HERE. I actually did not cut this piping on the bias since I knew it would be inserted in a straight seam and I already liked the diagonal of the fabric. If you were planning to make a lot of piping and wanted to use it in future projects, I would not recommend doing it the way I did......go ahead and cut it on the bias.

So for the rest of the dress construction, you can refer to the instructions for the Summer Picnic Dress. To find those instructions, click HERE. Just remember, you are only inserting straps in the back part of the dress, you need to make two small, 3/4" buttonholes on the front yoke and if you are doing the double ruffle, just layer the two ruffles together before gathering.

This is such a simple dress that your little lady will love to wear day after day. The design is pretty forgiving, so she should also be able to continue to wear it as a top once she gets taller. 

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and thanks so much for stopping by!

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The Cottage Mama Facebook 10,000 Fans Sale

Just a quick post to let you know that we've reached over 10,000 Fans on The Cottage Mama Facebook page. In celebration of this milestone, I am offering a 20% off sale on all patterns (Paper and PDF) in the shop with coupon code FACEBOOK10 through Sunday 4/14. I don't do sales very often, but I am so thankful for all of the love and support you have shown me in helping me grow my business!

Next week, to continue the celebration, I will be offering a giveaway from me to you as a big thank you. If you're not a fan of The Cottage Mama on Facebook, please come over and join us. We have a lot of fun chatting about sewing, fabric, cooking and more!

Again, the 20% off coupon code is FACEBOOK10 and you can find the shop here.

I hope you have a wonderful day!

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Creative Books for Girls

Do your kids love books? Mine really do. They love reading stories every day and going to the library to pick out their new books. My husband typically does bedtime with the girls and I am in charge of bedtime for our little man, Caspian Finn. Usually about once or twice a week my husband has to work late at night and that means I'm on duty for the girls bedtime routine as well. And that means Mama is in charge of stories for the night.

The girls each get to pick out a story to be read before bed, so they usually get two stories per night. Since I don't do bedtime with them on a regular basis, I love to read them a special story that means something to me and to them. While I don't know if my girls will grow up and have an interest in the things I love.....sewing, cooking, crafting, decorating, ect. I do hope to share my love of these things with them, help to foster their creativity and encourage them to be independent thinkers. And I want them to know that's it's ok to be different.

Today I wanted to take a little time to share some books that I think are really great to read to the little ladies in your life. If you are reading this blog, I am going to guess that you and I have a lot in common, so these books spoke to me and my children, so I hope they speak to you and yours.

 Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett

  

A Remnant Surprise by Vanessa Roam

Crafty Chloe by Kelly DiPucchio

I Had a Favorite Dress by Boni Ashburn

Different Like Coco by Elizabeth Matthews

Birdie's Big-Girl Dress by Sujean Rim

I've linked all of the titles underneath each book over to Amazon.com or the authors website so you can read the book description to find out more!

So tell me, what are your favorite Creative Books for Girls?

If you have any others, I'd love for you to share them with everyone in the comments section.

Have a great day!

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Giveaway Winners ~ Violette Field Threads and Crafter's Vision

Wow, you guys really love our new sponsor, Violette Field Threads and one of our long-time sponsors, Crafter's Vision! We had about 1250 entries into the Violette Field Threads giveaway and over 1000 entries into the Crafter's Vision Giveaway.

The Crafter's Vision giveaway was about a month ago and while I picked the winners, they never made it into a post here on the blog. So don't worry, you didn't miss anything recent, but I just want to make sure everyone gets their prizes.

And the winners are........

Violette Field Threads (10 Pattern Bundle):

Crafter's Vision ($50.00 Gift Certificates):

Congratulations ladies! Please email me at thecottagemama[at]gmail[dot]com with your contact information and I will make sure you get your prizes as soon as possible.

On another note, we are very close to reaching 10,000 fans over on The Cottage Mama Facebook page and once we hit that number, I have a big giant giveaway planned. So if you aren't a fan yet, please come on over and join us on Facebook! Click HERE to visit The Cottage Mama on Facebook.


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Patchwork Pillow Pattern and Tutorial

My mom's birthday was last month. She and Savannah actually share the same birthday, March 5th.....it's pretty special. Mom always comes to visit for the kids birthday and I wanted to make her something special for her birthday this year. She has really been into quilting lately and we share the same love of patterned fabric. I came up with this pretty patchwork pillow for her to put on the couch in her sewing studio. The 'M' is for Mom or her last name, 'Michel'.

The pattern I created for this pillow makes a fairly large pillow (20" x 20"), but you could certainly make it smaller by not adding the sashing around the edges or using smaller squares of fabric. Also, I used machine embroidery on a solid color fabric for the center panel, but if you don't have machine embroidery just use another patterned fabric or consider doing some hand embroidery.

Patchwork Pillow Pattern and Tutorial

by Lindsay Wilkes from The Cottage Mama

Supplies:

40 (2.5") squares of fabric in coordinating prints

1/2 yard fabric for sashing

Fat quarter or fabric scrap for center panel

3/4 yards fabric for pillow backing, cut 20" x 20"

1 20" x 20" pillow form or fiberfill for stuffing

Instructions:
 

Step 1: Cut the pieces according to the graphic pictured above. If you are planning on using embroidery on your center panel, do that prior to cutting out your square so you have plenty of extra fabric to place in your hoop.

Center Panel (Cut 1): 6.5" x 6.5"
Small squares (Cut 40): 2.5" x 2.5"
Top and Bottom Sashing (Cut 2): 14" x 3.25"
Side Sashing (Cut 2): 3.25" x 20"
Pillow Back (Cut 1): 20" x 20"

Step 2: Sew the pieces together. Look at the pattern graphic pictured above. I tried to color coordinate each step of sewing the pillow together. You will sew from the inside outward. The actual patchwork will not all be in the same color, but the colors above are for visual reference. Make sure you press as you go.

**All Seam Allowances 1/4", unless otherwise noted**

-Sew the pink squares together, then attach them to the center panel.
-Sew the blue squares together, then attach them to the center panel.
-Sew the yellow squares together, then attach them to the center panel (which will already have the pink and blue squares attached).
-Sew the green squares together and attach them to the center panel.
-Attach the bottom and the top row of sashing to the center panel.
-Attach the two side sashing pieces to the center panel to finish piecing the pillow top.

The picture above is what your pillow front will look like once you have pieced the entire thing together.

Step 3: Topstitch the pillow front. Feel free to get creative with this part of your pillow. I simply ran a line of stitching on either side of each seam on the patchwork section using a 1/4" seam allowance. And did one row of topstitching on the sashing around the border of the patches also using a 1/4" seam allowance. You could definitely add batting to the back of the pillow top to give it a more quilted look; however, I did not use batting for this particular pillow.

Also, since this stitching was purely decorative, I used aqua embroidery thread that coordinated with the machine embroidery. Just remember, you don't want to use embroidery thread in your seams, but it's great for decorative stitching because of the lovely sheen!

Step 4: Attach the pillow front to the pillow back using a 1/2" seam allowance. Place the pillow front and the pillow back with their right sides together and sew around three of the four sides. Clip the corners to remove the bulk, turn right side out and press. Make sure to press out the corners with a point turner or a chopstick.

Press the edge that you left open under by 1/2" towards the wrong side of the fabric (this will make hand sewing the pillow close much easier in the following step).

Step 5: Insert the pillow form and close the pillow. My favorite closing stitch is a blind stitch because you don't see any of the stitching, but you can use any stitch you like.

If you've never done a blind stitch before, you should give it a try! My Grandma Peggy taught me how to sew one quite some time ago and I love it. My blogging friend Amy from Positively Splendid has a great tutorial found here for exactly how to sew a blind stitch. Also, if you would prefer an envelope style back (so you can wash the pillow cover), you can check out my friend, Delia's blog, for a 20" Easy Envelope Pillow Tutorial.

Now look......your pillow is complete!

A few other notes:

The 'M' design was a built in embroidery design on my Baby Lock Unity Sewing and Embroidery Machine. The colors for embroidery were all Gutermann Embroidery Thread with the colors being 7165 (aqua), 8595 (green), and 5136 (light pink). I just started getting into machine embroidery so I don't have a huge thread preference yet, but I think these turned out very nicely. I also used a tear-away stabilizer on the back of the fabric prior to embroidering.

The fabric I used was a 2.5" square mini-charm pack of "Marmalade" by Bonnie & Camille for Moda Fabrics. The sashing and backing were both cut from yardage of the same line of fabric. Several blog sponsors here at The Cottage Home carry this line of fabric and you can find the fabric store sponsors in the right side bar of the blog.

Thanks for stopping by!

I hope you have a wonderful week!

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Easter 2013

I know it's a little late, but I wanted to share some Easter pictures with you all and fill you in on what we've been up to the last couple weeks.

 The girls in their Easter dresses.

For Spring break / Easter we went to visit my mom (aka Grandma Jane) and Pepo down in Texas. It was just the breath of fresh air that I needed getting away from the cold, dreary Chicago winter. It gave me a glimpse of what's to come in the next few months weather-wise here at home. Oh, how I love warm weather and sunshine! I don't think most of the folks down there thought it was warm, but for us, 70 degrees was just perfect.

 Savannah loved the Easter bunny this year.

I flew down with the three kids by myself (yes, I know, I'm crazy) and then my husband met us down there about four days later. The kids did such a great job on the airplane. I'm not going to lie, I was nervous (I mean very nervous) about how this would go all by myself. It's one thing to travel with three kids, but three kids age five and under is an entirely different beast.

I got some really great advice from a lot of you over on The Cottage Mama fan page, so I really appreciate all your great tips and tricks. I made sure I had all of our electronic devices (LeapPad, iPad, iPhone), some treats the kids don't normally have at home and some board books for the little man. Caspian sat on my lap the whole flight and never tried to get down (thank goodness). I just tried to stay one step ahead of him and what he might need. I knew what trick (or treat) I would be pulling out each time he got a little antsy. And the biggest relief was that no one needed to go potty or needed a diaper change on the plane. Woooohooo!

 Caspian and Pepo (aka Grandpa)

 Caspian's first real egg hunt.

 We tried to get a picture with all the grand-kids, but this is as good as we got.

We had such a lovely trip. We took the kids to the children's museum, the Houston zoo, Chuck E. Cheese (they had never been before), played outside in the yard, played with bubbles and gardening tools. My mom's husband, Pepo, is a top-notch golfer. They had little toy golf sets for the kids and he taught them a thing or too when it came to golf.

 Most pictures of Caspian look like this these days......he's always on the move.

The Easter bunny came to visit us in Houston. We attended my mom and Pepo's church and had a fantastic brunch and Easter egg hunt at their Country Club. It had an incredible spread of food and I love to eat, so I was in total heaven. There was every kind of salad you could think of, tons of boiled shrimp, smoked salmon, an omelet station, pancakes, waffles, biscuits and gravy, fruit, pastries, fancy cheeses, all kinds of fruit, pork loin, crab stuffed fish, roasted lamb, sliced beef, broccoli gratin, wild rice, roasted potatoes, cheese grits, roasted vegetables. Oh and the desserts.......red velvet cupcakes, pecan pie, tres-leche cake, coconut cake, chocolate cake and so on. Did I make you hungry? Can you tell I like food? I'm hungry just thinking about it all!

 Savannah's Easter Dress

 Savannah's Easter Dress

(Pattern: Children's Corner 'Mallory')

 Caspian and Daddy 

We really just had such a great time. I felt so happy in Texas. Every time I leave my mom, my heart hurts. Do you know what that feels like? It is my dream to live close to her someday. It just seems like life is so short that it saddens me that we don't get to spend more time together. I don't know if it will ever happen as life has us drawn us in different directions. But maybe it's true, absence makes the heart grow fonder? I'm sure that's true. But I'm sure my heart would be just as fond, if she were right down the street. Who knows? Maybe it will work out someday, but for now I cherish every visit I get to have with her. She is truly the best mom and friend that I could ever imagine.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and got the chance to spend some time with loved ones that are near and dear to your heart!

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