Sophie's Toile

That's it. It's a toile. I kept looking at the two piles of fabric DD and I put together for her Easter outfit and nothing rang my bell. Then I went stash diving and came up with this toile. It's a heavy cotton. Truth be told, it's a home dec print. I washed it and it softened up nicely . I bought this with intentions for it to be a garment from the start. The colors are soft yellow and a very greyish blue. It looks faded, sort of. So for my threads I chose dusty colors. I followed my sewing friend Lexie's lesson of picking the darkest and/or the lightest colors in the fabric and go two shades darker/lighter for the smocking. So I picked the blues and yellow first and then the remainding threads had to work with those.

You can see I have the skirt pleated. With prints you never quite know what you are going to get once the pleating starts, kind of like the box of chocolates. There will be a lot of smocking in this area so I think the final texture will be lovely and complimentary.

The dress will be a knockoff of Pretty Poppet from AS&E. If time allows I may even make the little jacket to go with this. I am using a part of a McCall pattern for the neckline and the rest is pretty much an upgraded version of the magazine pattern. The mag pattern only goes up to size 3 and I need a five. I think the smocking is pretty involved on this one, lots of bullion roses. But the dress is fairly simple and should move right along. I hope to start smocking tomorrow......Bunny