The dress fabric is a very pale peachy pink, but it just doesn’t show up in the photo.
Everyone wants their sewing efforts to be put to good use. Holiday sewing poses a problem because the garment may be appropriate for a very short time.
The Swiss embroidered edging appealed to me because when I first looked at it, I saw Columbus Day, 1492, with the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria all sailing toward the New World. When I looked again, I saw the Mayflower with pilgrims sailing across the Atlantic Ocean in 1620. The next time I looked, I saw the pirate ship at Sea World. Hmmmmm….. a dress with this trim could be worn almost year round here in Florida.
The color is enhanced to show detail.
In fact, when my granddaughter, Laurel, was two, she wore this dress to Sea World, later for Columbus Day and then again for Thanksgiving. It was a particularly warm fall so the sleeveless cotton dress was comfortable.  To me, that was enough bang for my sewing buck.
I thought about using it for July 4th, alluding to the Boston Tea Party, but without red, white and blue, it seemed like too much of a stretch.
The dress is made of 100% cotton, domestic combed batiste, one of my favorite fabrics. The Madeira appliqué collar treatment mimics the ocean waves and is pin stitched with a wing needle and 80/2 Madeira Cotona thread. After the peach batiste was appliquéd to the white collar, a row of machine made entredeux was stitched around the perimeter.
The Swiss embroidered edging was rolled whipped and gathered to fit the collar, then butted to the entredeux. The two pieces were joined with a fine zig zag. The final step was to apply a smaller Swiss edging to the center back to finish it off.
The shaped hem is also pin stitched. I wish I had repeated the Madeira pattern at the collar rather than using standard scallops, but that is another too late good idea . I debated adding some embroidery or some embellishment at the hem, but decided that none of the potential occasions for wearing it would justify too much fluffiness. So I stopped.
In general, my rule of thumb is that it is better to stop a little short than to overdue. Of course, this does not apply to sewing, shopping, eating, talking or a variety of my other favorite activities. Only embellishing.
