Twice is Nice - Baby dresses with my Creative Icon

It has been a busy beginning of this year for our family, three new little  members to our family and two of them needed new dresses.  These two projects were perfect for my first project with my 

Pfaff Creative Icon

There are so many options for embroidery and decorative stitches on this fabulous machine.  In case, you are catching up, I am a Pfaff Brand Ambassador and I am thrilled to be exploring all the possibilities with this machine.  When I turn it on, the options are right there and to start with the first dress, I went first with Start Sewing.  This is the Home Page for the Creative Icon and whenever you want to get back to this back just press the Home Icon under the screen.

The first dress is for the youngest granddaughter, Simplicity 1701, in size XS.  For both dresses I used chambray from Sewing Studio's Manic Monday sale.  This fabric was perfect to start the embellishing and making my granddaughters some very special dresses.

I wanted to highlight the bodice for both dresses and I went with a grid pattern on the Simplicity  bodice, one inch apart on the diagonal.

I had lots of choices for decorative stitches but went with a straight stitch, the embroidery needed to be the star.  The back looks good, too, and I worked really hard to match the back stitching.  The top matched better than the bottom.  When marking the grid, I need to be more precise.

For the embroidery on this dress, I went with one of the built in embroidery designs. 

 A cute raw edge embroidered flower, 21.

The finished result is very fun.

Now to finish off the first dress, I had to use the floating stitches on the Creative Icon.  What are floating stitches?  From the Pfaff website "Use new PFAFF exclusive Floating Stitches that look like they have no connection point!"  Let me tell you these are amazing.  These floating stitches can be used to embellish or can be used to sew two pieces of fabric together.   I went with the embellish option.

 For this dress I went with the diamonds, to coordinate with the diagonal grid patterns on the bodice.

For the floating stitches, fold the fabric back, right side together and place a stabilizer with a line drawn under the folded fabric.

Then stitch right along the line, the straight stitches are on the drawn line, the satin stitches on the fabric.

Remove the stabilizer, unfold the fabric and press.

Then ta-da , beautiful floating stitches.

This dress is just too cute and actually so small, I couldn't zip it up on this dressform!  Dress number one is complete and cute and ready to be worn by this little girl.

Now to work on her cousin's dress, who is 2 months older.  The pattern I went with New Look  6293

in size small.  I had just gone to new owners class at my local Pfaff dealer, which is an amazing plus, so much knowledge is shared.  

We learned how to combine embroidery designs and move them around in the hoop grid, rotate, etc.  I came home and took what I learned and created a design for this bodice.

Let's take a look at the design.

1.  Background is this wave pattern (Signature design -17) and I went for an ombre look when I stitched it out.

2.  Then a Pfaff exclusive design (45) for the middle design

3. Last I used an applique shape for the center, which I used a solid fabric for that.

And here is what it looked like all combined.

Can I just say I love, love how this turned out and with this knowledge I can really expand on all the designs and the creativity possibilities are unlimited!

Another look

Here is the dress with the embroidery and the floating stitches.

A closer look at these floating stitches,which I think looks like a bow.

Both of these dresses, were easy to construct.  

Highlights from the Simplicity 1701

1.  The bodice is lined 

2.  Armholes are bias binding, which I used the gingham fabric.

3. An invisible zipper for the back

Highlights from New Look 6293

1.  A cute gathered front neckline, which has elastic attached to the shoulder straps.  I did stitch the elastic in place at each side of the bodice to keep the elastic in place.

2.  I did attach buttons and buttonholes for the straps but think it would look really cute just tied as halter.

3.  Elastic casing in the back for a great fit.

4.  The bodice is lined on this dress also.

The two new girls in my life will look so cute in these dresses sewn with the fabulous Pfaff Creative Icon

With this first project complete, I have an idea for the next one.  Oh, who am I kidding, I have so many ideas in my head, I have to start writing them down.  This machine is just so fun and so amazing. 

Disclosure - I am a Pfaff Brand Ambassador and this post was created with the Pfaff Creative Icon.  The ideas and opinions are all mine.