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Quick and Easy Dress using the BERNINA 350PEWhen I heard that I was going to get to try out the BERNINA 350 Patchwork Edition, I immediately read up on the machine on
BERNINA's webpage. It is touted as being the machine to make clothing and house decor items, so I knew immediately that I had to try a dress that I had designed but had never gotten around to actually making. I've included the pattern in case you are interested in making something similar as well. It is sized to fit a four year old. My daughter is exactly in the 50th percentile for height and weight just to give you an idea of the fit of the dress.
So here are my cut out fabric pieces. There is one front piece and two back pieces. The pattern I've included is for the bodice. To get the length you want just extend the sides out as long as you wish on your fabric. (FYI: this pattern also makes a really cute tunic if you keep it short.)
You can find the JPG pattern at the bottom of this post. You'll need to be logged in to access it.)
I had to switch my thread out to use the color I wanted. One of the things I love about this machine is the bobbin winding mechanism. It's super easy to operate. Here you see me getting ready to push the bobbin over to the right, which automatically begins the winding process. It stops on its own when the bobbin is full. I have to add that the bobbin also holds an incredible amount of thread, which was nice because I didn't have to worry about stopping mid-project to refill it. Once you get a look at the stitch I used to hem this dress you will realize how amazing this is. I used an incredible amount of thread and it still had some left when the dress was complete.
Once the machine was threaded, I zigzag stitched around all three pieces. I actually have a serger which I normally use but I thought it might be nice to see how the BERNINA 350PE handled the job. I was pretty happy with the process. She stitches very quickly and the fabric feeds so smoothly that I didn't really have to do any adjusting ensure that the fabric fed through correctly. After the edges of the fabric were finished, I stitched the shoulder pieces, right sides together. This is what the right side of the dress looked like when I was done.
For this dress, I felt that stitch 62 was perfectly suited for the clean lines of the dress and the bold pattern of the fabric. I hit the button with a "#" sign on the number pad and then entered 62. You can on the screen that stitch 62 has been selected.
I folded over about 1/4 inch of the edge of the arm opening and sewed all along the folded edge it so it created a nice hem. I am using snap on sole #20, which is the open embroidery foot. It's designed so you can view your fabric and stitches more easily.
The decorative stitch I chose definitely added a nice touch. I think this is far more fun that a plain straight or zigzag stitch!
I then stitched the sides so I was left with a dress with the back open.
I sewed the back up with a straight stitch stopping short of about 5 or 6 inches. I ironed the seam down flat and then used a zigzag stitch around the 5/6 inch opening in the back to create a nice hem around it.
I then folded down the edge of the neckline about 1/4 inch and used the same fun decorative stitch that I used on the arm openings. Right before I got the end, I inserted a hair elastic in a fun bright color and secured it within the hem.
I doubled folded the bottom hem and used the same stitch to secure it as well. The fabric I used for the dress is home decor weight which means it was pretty thick once it was double folded. The BERNINA 350PE had no problem sewing it but I did notice that going over seams was a bit tough. Thankfully the folks at BERNINA have that covered. They included these nifty little plastic compensating plates that help keep the foot in the right position.
Here you can see what it looks like without the plates in place. It's not positioned too horribly but the foot is obviously tilted a little bit.
Here you can see that the plastic compensating plates position the foot correctly so the machine can grip the fabric properly and feed it through. It can take a bit to get used to actually using the plates but they really are handy for getting over those particularly tricky areas of your sewing projects.
Once I finished the hem, all I had to do was sew on a large and colorful button and add one excited little girl!
button to nominate it!
