Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Donna's Nightgown


Donna comes to see me on Tuesdays. She originally started taking  sewing lessons to learn how to  sew things for her grand babies.  That changed very quickly and  now sews  mostly for herself! :) 
She made this nightgown for herself  a few weeks ago. 
Isn't it lovely? She used a very pretty  eyelet fabric. 



The pattern is  Simplicity 3504, the same pattern I used to make this shirt 



For the inset, she used a solid white cotton and inserted a bit of lace into it. Above and below the lace is an heirloom stitch.  We used a wing needle to get the traditional hand stitched look. 





The lace we used is  lace hem tape. We used this method to insert it. 


 For the sleeves, she omitted one of the sleeve layers . The pattern shows the flutter sleeve with two layers.  On the edge of the sleeve she used a satin stitch for the hem. We set the machine to a short length and zig zagged over the edge a couple of times, stretching the fabric slightly as she sewed. This produces a soft  lettuce leaf effect on the edge.  This type of hem is nice and floaty and allows the fabric to drape nicely. We were worried if we put a double fold hem , or even used the rolled hem foot, the hem might be stiff and  the sleeves would stand out away from her arms giving her a bird in  flight look. We wanted soft flutter sleeves and this type of finish is perfect for these sleeves.

 I love how she changed the shirt pattern into a nightgown.  To change it from a shirt to a nightgown, we added a bit more ease  and lengthened it. Pretty easy alterations! :)
Great job Donna! It is lovely!
Sweet dreams to you in your  pretty new nightgown!


No comments:

Post a Comment