Hope Floats Breezy Blog Tour

What's that?? Over there?!  SUMMER!!  Okay, maybe not quite yet, but between days of gray and rain, we have had some lovely weather here in my tiny corner of the Pacific Northwest.  And summer means light flowy tops, sleeveless, and bright fun prints.  So I was excited to find a spot on the BebeLambs Hope Floats Blog Tour. 

The second half of this past week was gloomy, rainy, and all around blah.  So I was sort of getting panicky about where we would take pictures.  We had a great backup plan of some leftovers from Inara's Teen Beach Movie themed birthday party (inflatable palm trees, some beach toys, and flower garland things), but I REALLY wanted sunshine.

I have no idea what she's doing here, but she's clearly enjoying the sun.
The details:

Available in Sizes NB-10yrs
Tunic Length top with wide straps and straight front bodice.
Two skirt widths: basic and full
Printable bodice piece/measurements for skirts/straps
Beginner level, *will need to make a buttonhole though*
Approximate sewing time: 90 mins?  (I really need to get a timer!)

Available in the BebeLambs Etsy Shop

Okay... my take on the Hope Floats...

For the straps, I decided to pleat them in the middle so they would take up less of the bodice, but still look as full on the shoulders.  I also thoughy my bodice needed a little something extra... so I made a yo-yo flower and used a cute sailboat button for the center.  When sewing this on, I used a tiny flat button on the inside of the bodice to help secure it in place so it wouldn't pull on the fabric. 

The fabric has these darling little paper boats on it that I highlighted by using the same color for the bodice (both fabrics from Joann's).  And to (hopefully) tie it all together, I did my bodice topstitching in blue.

The back of the pattern is done with elastic casings, and after reading through the pattern, I decided to modify a couple things.  If you're new to my blog, my daughter has weird issues with seams (for some reason only on woven fabrics?), and so whenever possible I try to encase my seams. 

So using all the given pieces, I sewed my front and back bodice pieces, and then attached to the lining, so the seams are all enclosed.  I also decided that I wasn't confident enough in my buttonhole foot to do it through the elastic, so I did the casings slightly differently.  The size 5 calls for 3 pieces of elastic, so I did 6 channels all 3/8" wide starting from the top of the back bodice.

  I then inserted the elastic into every other channel, starting with the second one.  I like to do all my elastics at once, so I only have to stitch in the ditch once.

What this did for me was give me alternating channels that were hollow (didn't have elastic in them), so I could position my buttonholer along one of the empty channels to make my buttonhole and not worry about destroying my elastic because my buttonhole foot seems to hate me sometimes and do insane things...

So now that my bodice is all done and elasticized, I attached the two skirt pieces to each other, hemmed and gathered as the pattern calls  for and attached to my bodice... BUT, here I wanted to enase the waist seam as well, so I only attached it to the outer layer, then folded the inner later under 3/8". 

When I do these seams, I find that my glue pen is my bestie.  *Which is a nice change from my seam ripper.*  And I use it to secure the lining over the seam and then I topstitch it in place.  It's a little hard to see here, but it's all nicely hidden inside now, and Inara can wear it all day without getting upset over seams.

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I really love the light summery look of the pattern, and even though we took a step outside our normal prints with this one, she loved it and decided she was the "beach princess" since she was dressed the prettiest at the beach.

 Even Connor got in on the beach fun.  He is really becoming good at the photobomb.  I think he may have found his calling.  And I just love seeing them all dolled up in their mama-made stuff.  I think I need to make her some capri's to go with the top though, since it seems to be longer than her little shorts.

The pattern is available here.  And make sure you pop back over to Lynn's Blog to check out the list of the other bloggers AND to enter to win your own free copy of the Hope Floats!  And then, join the BebeLambs Pattern Group to show off what you make and see what all everyone is making with their BebeLambs patterns!

Thanks for stopping by, and thank you to Lynn for the chance to participate in her tour!