Fancy Free Patterns

Free patterns.  We love them!  We’ve used them many times, and today our goal is to show you how you can take free patterns and make them fancy.  Fancy free patterns.

When Frances Suzanne invited us to be a part of their Flip This Pattern series, we were floored!  These are some talented sewing ladies, and they invite really talented seamstresses to participate, so we were honored and overwhelmed.  Flip This Pattern’s theme for February is Free For All where everyone showcases a free pattern or tutorial.  There are literally thousands of free patterns and tutorials out there, and so many of them are so very wonderful, as you will see this month over at Frances Suzanne.  We had a hard time narrowing down which free pattern or tutorial we were going to use, and finally ended up with two!

We used the free tutorial by Shwin & Shwin to make Annie an Asymmetric Knit Jacket.  Their tutorial was very easy to follow, no mistakes, and we followed it exactly without changing a thing!

We still want to make a striped version, but for this time, we made a floral version with knit fabric we got in our bargain lot bundle from Girl Charlee.  The purple trim accent fabric around the edge is from an old Eddie Bauer tee of mine.  (Making this a Kids Clothes Week project sewn for the Upcycle theme that I couldn’t reveal yet!)   I haven’t always had success making my own patterns like this tutorial instructs, but I was really happy with the way this one turned out.

Shwin & Shwin actually made two versions of this jacket, and I used the second version with button holes and the pleated front rather than gathered front and button loops.

The skirt is a dressed up version of Dana’s from Made Everday’s free Skirt With a Sash tutorial.  I made one change as follows:

Instead of cutting out two skirt pieces and sewing them together, I cut out one long rectangle.  Then I sewed layers upon layers upon layers of lace on the rectangle.  When I was finished, I sewed the ends together to make a tube and continued on with the tutorial.

There are over 21 yards of lace on that skirt.  Which took hours to sew!  But just look at it!  Annie is completely smitten with this skirt.  I used light purple for the underskirt and navy lace.  Dana used pink and beige.

While I was sewing on all that lace, I was imagining all the different cool color combinations you could make.  Red and black.  White and mint green.

Together these two pieces make a simply irresistible combination.  It could be Allegra’s photography session with Annie, but these photos are absolutely breaking my heart.  Faintly Cinderella in the ashes.

Allegra took Annie to the grayest and most dusty places on our farm so that the outfit would be sort of the jewel in a pig’s snout.  This adorable outfit would probably stand out anywhere.

We hope this outfit shows you that free patterns and tutorials does not mean cheap looks!  The possibilities are endless, sort of like the lace on this skirt!!!

For many, many more free patterns and tutorial go over to Frances Suzanne and follow along with February Free For All.  If you’ve ever sewn up a free pattern or tutorial you can link it up here for a chance to win prizes!  And if you know of a free pattern or sewing tutorial they can be linked up here.