We are so pleased to announce a series of fantastic tutorials and how-to's, featuring some of our amazing bloggers.

First, we're going to be featuring an Ice Princess costume sew-a-long with Charlotte from Musaville. If you'd love to make the ideal Halloween or Christmas party costume for your little wanna-be Elsa, Charlotte will guide you through creating a bespoke outfit, in a small series of sewing blogs that you can easily follow along. We'll also be offering a complete kit at a great price so you can get all the supplies you need in one click!

Speaking of Christmas - instead of trawling the high street looking for the perfect dress, why not create your own? It will fit perfectly, be completely unique and you'll avoid last minute panic buying mistakes. Amanda of Sew Deputy will be showing you how you can make your very own gorgeous,  bespoke Christmas gown, so be sure to join us for this one! Again, we'll include a one click kit for your project.

Finally, we are so happy to announce that one of our very own bloggers is getting married! Skye will be tying the knot and we'll be keeping up to date with her plans for making her very own wedding dress. You can read more here. Skye has already taken a look and swatched some of our gorgeous bridal fabrics and we're pleased to say she's found the perfect lace for her dress. We'll post updates to the blog when Skye has some news....but of course, without ever revealing too much before the big day!

We hope you'll join us for what we hope will be useful, informative, helpful sew-a-longs packed full of ideas and inspiration.

If YOU have an idea for what might make the perfect sew-a-long project, then please drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you. 

When Charlotte selected a toddler dress sewing pattern, I have to say I was intrigued! Our other bloggers had mostly selected ladieswear, so we were really happy to have someone who branched out into kidswear.  The results are so pretty and perfect for Summer.  Here's Charlotte's make in full!

When White Tree Fabrics contacted me and asked if I'd like to be part of their Blogger Team I couldn't reply to them quick enough, they stock some beautiful fabric along with my all time favourite brand Tilda. I chose to make the dress shown in option B, I've deviated slightly from the pattern in that I haven't added the ric-rac hem or appliqué - the Tilda fabric is just too pretty to cover up and looks beautiful on it's own.

The pattern itself is very easy to put together, the part I struggled with slightly was getting the neck and back lining to sit nicely inside the dress. I may have cut one slightly off or stitched a few mm out when joining them, I need to be less impatient when sewing! It took quite bit of pressing and pinning but once I put some stay stitches in place it sat fine, I think it's just the nature of the style of dress. I was tempted to run a finishing stitch along the whole top edge but I think it would have looked too fussy, I want it to be more of an everyday, play dress than a special occasion one - nice and simple.

When it came to the button holes I was a bit worried, I've never done button holes before...then again up until about 10 weeks ago I'd never done a zip either...it's safe to say I'm quite the novice! Luckily my fancy pants new machine can do button holes all by itself, you just slide the button in the back of the special foot and it works out the size and sticthes away - perfect button holes everytime!
 

The finishing touch was a small bit of hemming and a good iron. I then remembered that the fancy pants machine can do EVERYTHING and decided to add my little MushaMakes embroidery on the bottom, did I mention how much I love my new sewing machine?

It was a lovely pattern to work with, so simple to follow (as long as you cut accurately) and I think it would look lovely no matter what fabric it was made it. I can't wait to use it again!

Shop the look:

Tilda Aurora Teal Fabric ► Click here

Sewing Pattern ► Click here

WhiteTree fabrics are delighted to welcome Charlotte Searles to the WhiteTree Blogging Team.

Charlotte lives near the seaside town of Southend on Sea and spends her days (when she’s not working 12 hour day and night shifts at her fulltime job) blogging, sewing, crafting and drinking tea. She has always had a love for all crafts but most recently has been focusing on developing her sewing skills and has re-opened her craft shop MushaMakes to run along side her blog Mushaville. It seems a skill for sewing runs in her family as her Mum, Auntie and Nan are all on hand for if she ever gets stuck on a pattern being a distant relation of Sir Edwin Hardy Amies might also help a bit! Charlotte has what she calls Crafting ADHD, she wants to try her hand at anything and everything - this means she always has at least 5 projects on the go at once and a To Do list as long as her measuring tape! At the news of her looming redundancy from her day job Charlotte decided to kick the crafting up a notch and treat herself to a fancy new sewing machine which she can’t wait to test out with her WhiteTree Fabrics makes.

We can't wait to see what she makes! You can follow Charlotte's sewing adventures over at her blog.