The Monthly Stitch January: New year = New skill

So in my plan to sew along, I thought I'd try keeping up with the Monthly Stitch. After all, the theme is for an entire month and I think mostly I can either use it as inspiration, or fit my sewing within the theme.

The challenge for January is a new skill. Being a short term sewer (sewist? clothier? seamstress? person who owns a sewing machine?), this is pretty easy for me. There are plenty of things I haven't done before and would like to have a crack at. However, I thought for this one I'd do something that I've wanted to figure out and have the fabric and plan for, but have just been too chicken to attempt. Until now. For me, my new skill is shirring.

Not fancy, not particularly tricky, but I haven't done it before, so new skill. I wanted to make my daughter a little shirred summer dress. I have this lovely birdie fabric and I have the elastic, plus it's bloody hot and she has decided she wants to learn to use the toilet, so dresses it is!

I started off using this tutorial from ikat bag. I really like her blog, I stand in awe of her crafting and sewing. Then I found this one from Make it and Love it which focused much more on the shirring, which was the part I was afraid of and it was easy after that. I kept my dress quite long with a deep hem, in the hope that it can make an appearance again next summer.

Look! Shirring! Also birdies

Honestly, the hardest part of the endeavour were the *swear jar* straps. They were just a bugger to turn, I'm not sure why. Once, turned out all was well, but it took some lateral thinking and a break between straps (seriously, they just did not want to turn).

Should I ever be pregnant over summer or just lazy and want something that can stretch no matter what I eat for lunch, I think a shirred skirt or maxi dress could definitely be a plan. Nothing like a sewing plan that involves rectangles of fabric and sewing in straight lines.

Rocking the strapless unhemmed dress - paired with trousers no less

The wearer of the dress was so pleased that she refused to take it off after I popped it on her to gauge strap length. So it was initially worn strapless (not a look a toddler can pull of easily). The straps are still a little long, so I'll fix them tonight when small people are in bed.

New skill mission accomplished!

Finished! The shirred birdy dress