Candy Shop Bubble dress

Guess what Jade is wearing today…

A Candy Shop bubble dress!

Definitely my new favorite pattern, super easy to assemble, although I doubt I will still like the dress while ironing it, as that seems to be less obvious then making the actual dress!

The pattern was drawn based on the patterns of these dresses. So the basis was an A-line dress. Some adjustments were made to bodice and skirt. The bodice was enlarged at the waistline but only with about a single cm. So the lining of the skirt part was made 1 cm wider as well. De outside fabric was made 6 cm wider at the waist and 11 cm underneath. The outside fabric is about 1.5 cm longer than the lining to avoid the lining from peeping out.

Firstly I finished the skirt, by attaching the lining to the outside fabric. Secondly I stitched the bodice, special attention went to making sure the design of the print was continuous on both sides of the blind zipper.

Lastly skirt and bodice were attached to each other.

I promise to publish some tutorials in November, this dress will be one of them as well as a pattern for the MacLaren liner, keep an eye on this blog.

I bought this Michael Miller fabric @ Vermiljoenshop.

Retro Rocket Rascals

I am lucky. I live in a sunny country and … there are several numerous fabric and haberdashery shops. Unluckily these shops mostly offer silk, synthetic fabrics and disappointingly small amounts of cotton. The available cotton is very thin and suits merely as liner for clothes, besides retro prints are nowhere to be found locally.

Nevertheless sometimes my endless fabric searches are worthwhile, as once and a while a roll of fabric falls of a container on its way from China to America or Europe.

Recently I when shopping at Tahir in Satwa, I found a roll of Michael Miller his Retro Rocket Rascals.

I once bought 1.5 meters of this fabric online, and I economized the use as I considered it pretty precious. The local shop owner –not realizing the real value of this roll- was selling the fabric way undervalued. Which made me back then (and most probably you now) think the fabric most be a copy of the real stuff. The shop owner sold me 1 meter and promised me to keep the roll aside for a couple of hours. The fabric was washed together with the previously online bought scrap, result: NO DIFFERENCE!

I wisely decided to buy the whole roll and started producing various retro rocket rascals items.

A couple of weeks later the proud shop owner calls me in, telling me he has found another roll of the same fabric and that he kept it aside especially for me because: “I know Madame this is your favorite fabric!”

Too much of ought is good for nought! In the meantime both rolls (I could not tell the man I wasn’t interested in the second roll!) are gathering dust.

I am sure there are people among you that wouldn’t mind helping me reducing my Retro Rocket Rascals stock, so once this blog has 97 followers (I do not like round numbers), we will raffle 2.5 meters among the followers of this blog.

The winners of the previous give away were Dirk Van Landeghem and Delphie de Leyn, thank you for sending us an email with your address details so we can send you your pencil case.

Apples for MacLaren

Mama S requested to make three liners for her MacLaren strollers; two of them for their twin stroller and one for their single stroller. She emphasized that the liner had to stay nicely in place so we added a “hood” and two straps at the back to make sure the liner doesn’t slide downwards when her babies wriggle.

Mama S made a fantastic choice in fabrics and the result is “yummy”.

As we were in the mood we decided to make one more “apple liner” this time for the MacLaren of baby M!

The liner is pictured in a Bugaboo, which is not a perfect fit as it is suppossed to be used in a MacLaren. On top of that, this is not baby M, but our very own Curl Up baby, the only one of the Curl Up family who seems to have curly hair!

The apple fabrics were bought in various stores. The red apples we bought @ Cozette, and during Van Katoen we bought the last 1.5 meters of orange apples @ Bambiblauw. Later on I discovered that there even is a green version of the same fabric, but unluckily enough the European online shops I tend to buy from were all sold out. So I bought this fabric overseas (I do not remember exactly in which shop).

The By Graziela apples I spotted @ Vermiljoenshop, but by the time I decided to buy some meters they ran out of stock, only the orange/yellow version was still available. So I bought the green/blue apples directly from By Graziela.

Pune, India

I am leaving for Pune, India, to represent the United Arab Emirates at the Asian Rugby Championships. Not much time left! Just wanted to share the luggage tags I made for all the girls, the manager and our trainer.

There was not a lot of time to be creative so got some inspiration on my pinterest boards and copied these cute luggage tags.

India, here we come!