{"id":3357,"date":"2015-02-02T11:07:44","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T16:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/?p=3357"},"modified":"2015-02-02T11:59:58","modified_gmt":"2015-02-02T16:59:58","slug":"primrose-bishop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/?p=3357","title":{"rendered":"Primrose Bishop"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m finally getting a chance to show folks the bishop I finished over the Christmas holidays. \u00a0This is Gail Doane’s Primrose, from the Country Bumpkin book Beautiful Bishops.<\/em> \u00a0I’ve made a bunch of bishops from this book, but I’ve \u00a0always had my eye on the Primrose. \u00a0It’s just so sunshiny and sweet.<\/p>\n

\"Primrose<\/a><\/p>\n

I started this dress over the summer, as a swimming lesson project. \u00a0The mindless trellis stitch was easy to work away on and didn’t require careful counting or hauling around a lot of materials. \u00a0I think it will be perfect for Easter and the spring and summer months. \u00a0I’ve been waiting for a nice sunny day to get good photos – winter sewing is always tricky to photograph well.<\/p>\n

\"Primrose<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0The fabric is a lovely striped swiss dot that I picked up on clearance at Fabricland last year, for $4\/m. \u00a0It’s the real thing and a lovely, soft hand. \u00a0I just wish the rest of the dress had been as inexpensive. \u00a0The insertions and silk ribbon weren’t cheap and ran me more than $45 bucks once shipping was factored in.<\/p>\n

\"Primrose<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Primrose<\/a><\/p>\n

For the floss, I ended up using\u00a0DMC Satin floss<\/a>, a 100% rayon thread that’s divisible and that matched the silk ribbon perfectly. \u00a0 I’m telling you, this stuff is fantastic! \u00a0Seriously, stitches like a dream, readily available at Michaels for a good price and comes in a good range of colours that correspond with DMC’s regular cotton skeins, so it’s easy to match and plan. \u00a0I’d heard so many horror stories about rayon – shredding, knotting, crazy tangles — that I’d always avoided it and stuck with cotton floss. \u00a0No more hesitation. \u00a0If you haven’t tried rayon, or had a bad experience with another brand, try this stuff. \u00a0It was a joy to stitch with, smooth and easy to handle.. \u00a0The only thing I had to do was cut slightly longer tails on my knots, because it doesn’t take as tight a knot as cotton but otherwise, I enjoyed every minute I stitched with it.<\/p>\n

\"DMCsatinrayon\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It also made great looking violets (or technically, primroses, although I think they look like violets). \u00a0The flowers are cast on stitches and french knots, with a lovely sheen. \u00a0They’re interspersed between tiny yellow bows decorated with bullion knots. \u00a0Aren’t they cute?<\/p>\n

\"Primrose<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0For the hem, I didn’t do the tucks that the book suggested. \u00a0It would have been too busy with the vertical stripes in the fabric. \u00a0Instead, I just tried to keep the stripes consistent between the dress and the hem band. \u00a0A few places are a bit misaligned but on a galloping horse, I think it’ll serve.<\/p>\n

\"primrose<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0I also changed the closure, from a back button band to a shoulder closure. I put clear snaps along the opening and then buttons with thread loops to finish it. \u00a0I’m still on the fence about the buttons – I have searched high and low and simply can’t find small yellow buttons that match as perfectly as I’d like them to. \u00a0They’re all lemon yellow, and I need butter yellow. Here’s the difference: without the buttons.<\/p>\n

\"primrose<\/a><\/p>\n

With the buttons:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"Primrose<\/a><\/p>\n

What’s your verdict? \u00a0Can I get away with the variation in colour or should I trade them out for white ones?<\/p>\n

The sleeves are finished with the insertion and a small scalloped trim. \u00a0I didn’t use the scalloped trim on the neckline as Gail had suggested. \u00a0Budgetary concerns \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\"primrose<\/a><\/p>\n

I interfaced the pleats with ultra-fine fusible interfacing. \u00a0On my first go-round, I tried it without, thinking I could get away without it. \u00a0And I could have, if Ellie’s neck was 3″ in diametre. \u00a0The fabric just pleated into nothing. \u00a0So I mumbled, grumbled and pulled out all the pleating threads and started from scratch. \u00a0
\n<\/a>
\n<\/a> \"primrose<\/a><\/p>\n

Then I interfaced it, the way I should have done in the first place and re-pleated it, having relearned my lesson. \u00a0Now the pleats were plump and well supported. \u00a0The interfacing extends about .5mm below the last row of smocking but is invisible from the right side.<\/p>\n

\"primrose<\/a><\/p>\n

The last part of the outfit was the slip. \u00a0The swiss dot fabric is darn near translucent, and so soft that it lacked body without another layer underneath. \u00a0You might not recognize the pattern I used for the slip. \u00a0It’s Judith Marquis’ Little Snowdrift<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"slip<\/a><\/p>\n

Normally, it’s a sundress pattern but the round yoke is perfect for underneath a bishop, so I used it instead of drafting my own. \u00a0All I did was lower the neckline a couple of centimetres, so that it wouldn’t be visible above the bishop’s neckline. \u00a0 Judith’s patterns are always really nicely laid out and well drafted, so I knew the fit would be good.<\/p>\n

\"slip<\/a><\/p>\n

The hem features five 1\/4″ tucks along the bottom, plus some entredeux and baby lace. \u00a0I think the tucks are a bit heavy – if I was doing it again, I think I’d go with pintucks instead — but I wasn’t taking them out!<\/p>\n

\"slip<\/a><\/p>\n

And it wouldn’t be a project if there wasn’t at least one snafu. \u00a0 While I was trimming the seam allowance on the yoke, look what I managed to snip by mistake:<\/p>\n

\"slip<\/a><\/p>\n

Argh. \u00a0 But again, it’s a slip. \u00a0Fancy underwear. \u00a0Nobody’s going to see it! \u00a0So I stuck a drop of fraycheck on it, backed it with a tiny square of fusible interfacing and\u00a0left it alone<\/em>. \u00a0You really have to know where to look and overall, I think Ellie’s going to look adorable in this dress.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m finally getting a chance to show folks the bishop I finished over the Christmas holidays. \u00a0This is Gail Doane’s Primrose, from the Country Bumpkin book Beautiful Bishops. \u00a0I’ve made a bunch of bishops from this book, but I’ve \u00a0always had my eye on the Primrose. \u00a0It’s just so sunshiny and sweet. I started this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,7],"tags":[177,28,88,287,301],"class_list":["post-3357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sewing-for-children","category-smocking","tag-bishop","tag-gail-doane","tag-heirloom-sewing","tag-rayon","tag-smocking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3357"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3433,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3357\/revisions\/3433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}