November 7, 2018

Simple Life Pattern Company Holiday Tour

It’s that time of year when all the sewists are beginning to plan holiday wear. For the last several years, I’ve been able to show off holiday looks for my girls using Simple Life Pattern Company patterns. This year is following suit. This post includes sale details and a nice giveaway, so be sure not to miss out on the details towards the bottom of the post. But first, here are some of my previous holiday makes with SLPco.

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Two years ago I used the Helena’s Pattern for this poinsettia dress. You can see the featured post on the Simple Life Pattern Company Blog here. It’s still one of my favorite patterns. I love the fitted bodice and the buttons down the back.

I made this teal Ava’s Dress for the SLPco Holiday Tour last year. It was a beauty with a dainty gathered cap sleeve and an easy to make keyhole back. I added a fun gold tulle underskirt to finish this off with a fancy touch. This dress fabric was sponsored by Hartz fabric. This year, Hartz fabric is participating in a rafflecopter giveaway so that you can make a holiday look with some lovely fabric too.

This year I had some fun making a three pattern mashup dress. I knew I wanted the Tulip sleeves and big bow that are features of the Mila pattern. However, I’m also a fan of dresses with fun backs. Doing some Pinteresting, I found an inspiration photo that lead me down the path of mashing the back of the Taylor’s pattern into the Mila bodice. This gives me the open circle in the back with a button at the top and several at the bottom.

The Mila Pattern calls for a zipper, so to get the buttons I added a small modesty panel and elastic loops for the buttons. It’s such a quick mode to eliminate the zipper closure. Lastly, I used the Molly Circle Skirt Add-on to finish this off. I double checked with Becca that it would fit without any issues and it did! Yay! Here’s my little secret. I didn’t add a placket to the circle skirt. I just popped it right onto the bodice. In terms of finishing plans, I chose to understitch the bodice rather than top stitching to provide a more formal look while still maintaining a nice finish. If you haven’t utilized under-stitching yet, it’s a great skill to have in your toolbox.

Because I know so many people were doing some fancy creations for this tour, I felt like I needed to add a little tulle to froof this up a bit. My girls are weird about tulle skirts, so I made this as a separate piece. You’ll see in a few more photos that we took some shots without the underskirt. It totally works with the tulle and without it.

I have to share a funny about this dress. Typically I lean towards the quick versions of patterns. I definitely don’t typically add the ruffle features or pockets on dresses. However, for this dress I thought I’d invest a little more time and decided to add pockets. Then, I totally forgot to take any photos of it or to even tell my daughter that it had pockets. It wasn’t until I was editing the photos that I remembered. Total craziness. If you look carefully, you may see that pocket trying to reveal itself in a few of these shots.