Its me Ti of Sewing By Ti! 
I promised you inspiration for the weekend and this is definitely it! Remember my Seamwork Paxson post from Monday? If you read closely, you’ll remember I repuzzled the pattern pieces and saved a TON of fabric. That means extra fabric. That’s a win for everyone.
So in honor of extra
fabric, I’ve got a quick scrap buster for you! The pattern I picked was the Lily Giggle Zinnia. The really sad news is you can’t get this pattern anymore. :*( But if at least a few of you were savvy, you picked up the big “going out of business sale” bundle that they released. I can’t say one way or the other whether this was in that bundle, because my pattern is from 2013, when they went out of business the first time. Maybe if we cross our fingers and wish on the first star they might make a resurgence? Who knows.
So the Zinnia is a super cute A-line or empire waist dress with the most adorable petal sleeves. Honestly, I bought 
the bundle for the sleeves on the Zinnia and the Petal Pants (also not available) and really mostly use those patterns out of the entire bundle.
For this one, I actually sized up. Since I was sewing for fall/winter, and our winter can last well into April or even May here in South Eastern Wyoming, I wanted to be sure we’d get some good wear out of this dress.
Ironically, these photos were taken August 4th. The high for the day was 67 Degrees Farenheit. Not to be cliche, but “winter is coming”.
I used the scraps left over from my husband’s Paxson to make the entire knit bodice. Its a
gorgeous, silky soft fr
ench terry from Stylish Fabric. If not for the loops on the back, I wouldn’t even call it french terry, I’d call it a nice silky jersey. I grabbed some Shopkins fabric from my stash for the skirt. The skirt is made according to the pattern. The pattern calls for gathering the skirt, but you’ve heard me gripe about gathering before, so I opted for 4 pleats (2 front, 2 back). I do have one HUGE complaint about the skirt. For all the sizes, you use 45″ width of fabric. That means the itty bitty sizes will have so much gather it may be too much. And the larger sizes may not have enough skirt. The pattern claims this is to save fabric. It does save fabric, but I’d rather have consistent amount of skirt for each size.
Options to make it better.
1- take the entire width of the bodice and multiply by 1.5 or 2 to get a consistent skirt for each size. Time consuming because you have to do a little math
2- use a different pattern to get your skirt widths. I can point you over to the Jocole Blog to get a FREE chart for skirt widths.
And if you’re feeling really sad about not being able to get your hands on the Lily Giggle Zinnia, I’ve got some alternative suggestions for you on Monday with some examples. 🙂
And of course don’t miss any of the stops on the Sew Ready For Fall tour!
August 1st
Sewing By Ti and Rebel and Malice
August 2nd
Gray all Day
August 3rd
Wild and Wanderful and The Sara Project
August 4th
Doodle Number 5 and Sweet Red Poppy
August 5th
Paisley Roots and Dos Natural Sistas and My Crafty Little Self
August 8th
Made By Melli and Sew Far North
August 9th
Sew Sophie Lynn and Creative Counselor
August 10th
Frivolous at Last and EYMM
August 11th
Lulu and Celeste and Sprouting Jubejube
August 12th
Adventures with Bubba and Bug and All Things Katy and Sewing by Ti
