Portabello Pixie Part 2 or Shirring Madness

After my good experience with Portabello Pixies' Apron Dress from their Claire pattern, I decided to try another view from the same pattern-- an innocent and simple looking peasant dress. Before I knew what I'd gotten my self into, I discovered the instructions called for SHIRRING and it was too late to turn back. I've NEVER done shirring before, but have seen posts about it on some of the blogs I follow. It always seemed a little intimidating and now I know why! The actual technique on paper is fairly straightforward, but putting it into action proved a little more tricky. Tutorials I found online were helpful, but my machine was... not so much. After days, that's right, days of fiddling around with bobbin tension and different elastic threads and thread tension and stitch length and my beloved ironing board dying, I finished the dress. Hooray! Even with the trouble I had getting the shirring to come out right on my Brother machine, I still really enjoyed the process and think the finished product is really neat.

I did alter the pattern a bit. It called for a ruffle along the bottom, which I left off and for multiple rows of shirring around the waist. I decided to just do one row partially because of the trouble I was having getting the shirring to work right and partially because I thought it would be over kill on that small bodice.
The fabric I used is from Amy Butler's Daisy Chain line.