Bayern Sundress - Guest Post & Mini Tutorials

Today's a fun day for me in the world of my blog...my first guest post EVER is over at Melly Sews, as part of the Sundress Series!  How exciting is that!?  I chose to make a dress for Anja that I really fell in love with...and then I decided to make it three times!

I've called it the Bayern Sundress, because I bought the inspiration dress in the Bayern (Bavarian) region of Germany while I was travelling by tour bus across western Europe with my cousin (from Brno, Czech Republic to Paris, France).  We stopped in a little town, came across a little children's clothing shop, and I bought a little dress, for a friend who was expecting her first baby.  

Here's what I came up with:

For the tutorial on how to make the dress, pop over to Melly Sews.
It's actually quite easy...I hope my instructions are clear enough!
 I've been experimenting with different, hopefully easier ways to create tutorials.  

And here's a couple mini tutorials on the other two looks I made...

Colour Blocking with Aneela Hoey
Sherbet Pips Fabric

I love Aneela Hoey fabrics!  There's something about the sweet, simple sketches of children & animals at play that I just love.  And it happened to be on sale at one of the local quilt shops!  I had to pick up some of the little dog prints because Anja loves dogs.

To do the colour blocking, I chose a contrasting dark brown cotton, cut 7.5cm (3 in), and sewed it to the bottom of the original skirt. 

The result turned out just as I had wanted!

Layering with Linen


For the second variation, I layered the skirt with white linen.  Gingham is one of my favourite prints, and contrasting the navy with a crisp white underneath was something I really wanted to try.  I made a second skirt back & front out of the linen, 10cm (4 in) longer than the original skirt.  Then I sewed it the same way as the original skirt.  And attached it the same way, only inside the original skirt.  Here are some photos to help explain:

And it turned out like this:

If you haven't already, check out the current giveaway...today's the last day to enter!