Cheater, Cheater PLACKET and BUTTONHOLE beater! A BG Luna Hack.

Do you remember that song from childhood?

Cheater, cheater pumpkin eater.

Had a wife but couldn't keep her, 

put her in a pumpkin shell

and there he kept her very well?

I can still see myself sitting at my grandmother's piano "playing" that song. It isn't a highly skillful song, one that you can do with one index finger. Being a piano teacher, I am sure that one index finger drove my grandmother almost as crazy as the repeat "cheater, cheater" all day long, but somehow she had the patience of a saint when it came to me and so she just ignored it all-together. ;) Speaking of my grandmother, I can almost hear her "tisk-tisking" as I sit down to write a blog about a hack that eliminates a skirt placket and buttonhole on a child's dress. 

But, in my defense...times change, and as they do, sewing methods sometimes do as well. While I agree that there is beauty in a skirt placket and a functioning buttonhole, I can also be completely honest and say that us moms have a lot on our plates. And if there is something we can do that can cut a few steps off a a pattern when sewing for our kids, let's go for it. Don't get me wrong, I do like the old-school methods of sewing and honestly prefer them (I mean, there is a method to the madness of them being around for so long), but if you can fit it over your kiddo's head without the need for the extra steps...so be it. Your secret is totally safe with me! But, with that said, I find it is imperative that you know how to do the methods you cheat around because they prove so important and useful in sewing. Since my child has a large head, I do a looooooooot of placketing. Obviously that large head houses a large personality too. :)

I spy a little Reese Whitherspoon in that last one. And I mean that in a good way, I love her.

So, here goes. I will show you how to eliminate the skirt placket and functioning buttonhole from your Luna dress (which you have all bought like crazy, gosh I love you!!!). With this method, the yoke seam is no longer hidden...but again, your secret is safe with me. You may notice I am working on the same fabric as I am in the actual pattern. Louisa loved the chartreuse and navy dress I made her with the angel sleeves, so I made one with 3/4 length sleeves as well for a photoshoot. In the days of athletic shorts and t-shirts, I almost jumped at the chance!

This tutorial will coincide with the actual pattern tutorial. So, I will reference methods from time to time in the pattern. First things first. You must make sure that you can fit the Luna over your kiddo's head without the need for the functioning button and placket FIRST. So I suggest to make a muslin of the yoke. Since you want to test the opening of the neck, cut 2 front pieces on the fold and use one of the front pieces as the back. This will give you an idea of how it does without the opening. 

If you get the green light, follow me! 

Cut your Luna yoke just as you would in the pattern and sew the shoulder seams on both the outer and lining as you do on page 9 of the pattern. Press your seams. Now place the outer yoke and lining right sides together matching up the shoulder seams and pin in place. Here, you will sew along the black lines as shown below. As you can see, the only difference form the pattern is how you will sew down the back sides as well this time. 

Once sewn, clip the corners and edges as shown below with the white lines. 

Then take your yoke over to the ironing board and press it out. Take your time here because the yoke really is a stand-out piece!

Once pressed, you can top-stitch along the insides of your yoke as shown below with the black lines.

Now, lay your yoke on a flat surface with the right sides facing up. You are going to overlap the back pieces by 3/4". Since you do not have a placket, it doesn't matter which side overlaps the other. I generally pick which side looks the best. ;)

Once overlapped, pin in place and run a basting stitch along the bottom as shown below in black. This will hold your bodice together. 

Side note: if you want a little more room in the Luna, decrease the amount you overlap.

Now set the yoke aside for just a bit and grab your skirt pieces. You will not be cutting down the center of the back piece like you do in the pattern since you don't have a placket. Run a gathering stitch along the top of both the front and back pieces. Good grief, Amy learn to iron first!!

Now, pull the gathers in on one of the skirt panels to match the bottom of the yoke front. UNLIKE the pattern, you will be attaching the skirt piece to both the yoke outer AND lining. 

Once you have the gathers distributed, place the skirt panel right sides together with the yoke making sure the raw edge of the skirt aligns with the raw edges of the yoke outer and lining. Pin in place and sew along the bottom as shown below with the white dotted line. Finish this seam however you please and then repeat with the back skirt panel and back yoke. 

Once you have the skirt panels attached, head over to the ironing board and press the seam up towards the yoke.

If you are going to top-stitch, now is the time. Just as I said in the pattern, I don't like to top-stitch over my trim so I decided against it here. However, if you are going to top-stitch, run your stitch along the seam as shown below in black.

Now, flip your yoke over so that the back is facing up and place your button on the overlap as shown below. Sew the button in place, and guess what ladies...you are now ready to tackle the rest of the pattern! For View A, start at the bottom of page 18 and for View B, page 26. Make sure to ignore any talk in the rest of the pattern about keeping the lining out of the way and then enclosing the skirt seam.

How's that for a quick hack? The best part about this method is that you can use it with so many patterns, AS LONG as your child can get it on and off without the need of buttons or a placket. 

Again, ladies you have rocked the Luna debut and since I am uber-disorganized right now, I forgot to change the price of the Luna last night in the etsy shop - so take advantage of my disorganization and shop with a discounted promo price for one more day!

Thank you again for your continued support and overall awesomeness. I will be disappearing for the next few days since I have yet to swap over mine or my kid's closets for the season change. Thankfully we live in the bi-polar South so we've been managing for the last few weeks...but I am pretty sure it isn't acceptable for me to wear the same shirt 4 days in a row. Whoops. 

Xoxo - Amy

The Lottie Skirt - with big pockets and an elastic back (A tutorial)

Happy, happy Friday everyone. I hope you have all had a great week and hopefully  you have been able to take advantage of my LUCKY 7 week and get some patterns on sale. If not, my patterns will stay reduced to $7 through the weekend and be back to regular price next week.

I hope you have also had a great time seeing all the sneak pictures of the Luna dress. Good gravy, I love this pattern. I am going to spend the weekend finishing up some last minute things with the pattern and have it live and in the shop come Monday! Just as Jimmy Buffett says...Come Monday, it will be alright! Speaking of things being alright, how about if I told you there were two amazing giveaways going on for the Luna AND some Art Gallery fabric??!! Check out both of these blogs and enter the giveaways for your chance to win!!

• Baby Hobbes Design: Luna Luna! You had me at Hello!!

• Oh Luna I love You So!

Earlier this week I promised you a tutorial on how to add big pockets to your Lottie skirts and also make it with an elastic waistband (just in the back so the front still has that polished flat look).

 I had hoped to blog before Friday, but we all know how life is. This seems to be wild time of year for me as I am trying to tie up all of the loose ends with BG before the holidays begin. So, needless to say...here it is Friday morning and I am just now getting back to you with the Lottie tutorial!

This tutorial will show you how to make some changes to the Lottie skirt pattern. Since the pattern is very detailed, I won't go into many details here but instead will reference the pattern. 

First things first, let's start with the waistband. Since there will be no closure in the back, cut 2 of the front waistbands. There are patterns pieces, or dimensions for those that would rather in the back of the pattern (starting on page 45). I am making a size 5, so I am cutting 2 pieces of fabric that are 5.5 x 11.75.

Once cut, place the 2 pieces right sides together and sew along the sides as shown below with the dotted lines. Take the waistband over to the ironing board and press those 2 seams out. 

Now, fold the waistband over on itself with right sides facing. Run a stitch along the top of the waistband (the folded edge) as shown below. This is exactly like you do on page 10 of the pattern, with the only exception being that this waistband is tubular since it is joined on both side. And because the Ninja Turtles think it is cool. Totally tubular. 

Once stitched, flip the waistband right sides out and then head over to the ironing board and press the top seam that you just stitched flat. While at the ironing board, go ahead and flip up a 3/8" hem along the bottom of one side of the waistband as shown below. This will be the lining side and will help us to enclose the skirt seam later on. 

Once that hem is pressed, set your waistband to the side. Now on to the skirt panel. I have only done this particular skirt with the elastic back with the gathered skirt. Personally I cannot ever seem to get my pleats to look right when I use an elastic waist, so I don't even go there. But, you can certainly try it out if you like! For this tutorial purpose, we will be focusing on the gathered skirt. On the pattern page 6 you will find the cutting chart for the gathered skirt of the Lottie. For this look, you want to cut 2 front skirt panels. Again, I am doing a size 5, so I will cut 2 panels that are 14 3/8" x 23 1/2". Once cut, place right sides together and sew up along the side seams as shown below in the black dotted lines. Finish those seams and then press. Alternatively you can also do these with french seams and then the entire skirt will have beautiful finished, hidden seams. :) Sometimes the insides of a garment make me just as happy as the outside!

Once your side seams are sewn, go ahead and hem the bottom of the skirt. I find it easier to go ahead and hem it now. Follow the directions to hem just as you would in the pattern starting on page 41.

For the pocket, there is no right or wrong here. Louisa wanted a skirt with a big pocket. She saw on in a catalog this summer (possibly Mini Boden???) and has been talking about it ever since. So, Momma wanted to deliver! Place your skirt panel on a flat surface where one of the side seams is facing up. This is where you will need your best eye-balling skills. Again, no right or wrong here, but let me tell you what I do. I like to make a large, rectangular pocket that sits off-center of the side seam. This basically just means I want more pocket to the front of the skirt than I do to the back. Below in turquoise I sketched how I eye-balled the pocket. Remember that you will have a 3/8" seam at the top of the skirt. For this skirt, I ended up making a sketch that had a width (W) of 8 by a height (H) of 8. 

Now, for some math. I mean, it wouldn't be a BG tutorial without math now would it? :) So the pocket sketch you made will be for the finished measurements of the pockets. But, you need to know how to cut them. So, I have some formulas for you. 

For the width (W), you want to do: W + 1. Easy enough, right:

For the height (H), you want: H + 2.5.

So, in my example for a finished pocket with W of 6 and H of 8, I will cut TWO pockets that are 7" by 10.5". 

W: 6 + 1 = 7

H: 8 + 2.5 = 10.5

Once your math is done and your pockets are cut, finish the 2 sides and the bottom of the pockets however you please. Then, head to the iron and press to the wrong sides a .5" hem along the bottom and sides as shown below in black. For the top, press down a 1" hem (turquoise line below) and then another 1" (darker turquoise) for a finished hem. 

Once pressed, top-stitch along the top hem as shown below in black.

Now for the fun part...placing the pockets! If you are lucky, your skirt panel is still laid out flat on a flat surface. If you are me, your kids are home from school for the day and have taken over your sewing room while you are working...

With your skirt panel on a flat surface with one of the side seams facing up, place the pocket on the panel how you would like it. Again, this is not rocket science at all but I like to place mine off-center so more of the pocket is towards the front. There is no sense in having a great, big awesome pocket if her hands cannot reach it, right?? Once you are happy with placement, pin in place and then repeat with the other pocket. Make sure both pockets are symmetric!

Once they are pinned, head over to your machine and stitch the pockets in place as shown below in black. I like to do a triangle stitch at the top of each pocket to reinforce that seam since it will see a lot of wear and tear with hands going in and out of the pocket.

Once your pockets are sewn in place, run a gathering stitch across the top of the skirt. On page 28 of the pattern, I show how to do this and this tutorial is similar, but you will only have 2 stitches, one across the top front and one across the top back.

Continuing on via the pattern, match up your skirt side seams with the waistband side seams and pull your gathers in to match the waistband. Pin in place and take to the machine and stitch the skirt to the  raw edge of the waistband. Remember how we pressed up the hem of one side of the waistband earlier? Make sure that is not included in this stitch! Once you have your skirt stitched to the waistband, finish that seam. It will be enclosed but finishing helps to reduce the bulk.

Now, take to the iron and press the seam up towards the waistband as shown below by the yellow arrow. This is always a fun step to me. There is just something about seeing a gathered fabric pressed against a non-gathered spot. Oh it makes me happy!

Staying at the ironing board, flip your skirt over and then press the other side of the waistband (the side you pressed a hem earlier) over to cover the skirt seam. Press all the way around the skirt as shown below. See how awesome it looks when it covers the seam?

Now, take your skirt to the machine and top-stitch around the top of the entire waistband as shown below. This will help create the casing for our elastic. You see this machine? This is Louisa's sewing machine. My faithful Brother that lasted me 5 years longer than it should went caput on me and so thankfully I had Lou's to get me through some garments. Phew!

Now, you can either use Wonder-Tape or pins, but you want to secure the waistband over the skirt seam in the front. ONLY THE FRONT for right now. Since it is only the front, I usually will just use pins. Then, take to your machine and top-stitch along the skirt seam on the front ONLY as shown below. This helps to enclose that skirt seam.

This is what it will look like on the inside of the front of the skirt after you have sewn it down. 

Now, for the elastic. More math, but again...I have a formula for you! To determine the amount of elastic you will need, use this formula:

(waist measurement / 2) - 3

For my example, Louisa's waist was 22. So, I cut a piece of elastic that was 8" long since (22/2)-3 is 8. (I will add I found it to fit just a bit snug on Louisa...so next time I may only subtract 2, but then again I was using an elastic that was very tight...just a little side note.)

For the size of elastic to use, I recommend using the widest you can for the casing. In my case, I used a 1.5" wide elastic. I probably would have been fine with just 1" since it was a bit difficult to pull through, but it was all I had on hand so I made it work!

Now, with your piece of elastic, you want to feed it into the waistband back as shown below. 

Pull it around to one of the side seams. Pin in place with aabout 1/4' of the elastic to the front of the side seam. This is shown below with the elastic in green. In the photo below, the skirt front is to the right.

Now, to secure the elastic, stitch in the ditch (meaning run a stitch on the side seam of the waistband). This is shown below from the RIGHT side of the skirt in black. I am sorry I realized just now that it may be confusing with the front of the skirt on the right in the photo above and below it is to the left, but hopefully you catch my drift with the green area posing as the elastic.

Once that side is secured, do the same with the other side of the elastic and the opposite waistband side seam. Once your elastic is secured in both places, you want to sew the back of the skirt along the skirt seam. I find this is easiest to do on the machine while pulling the elastic taught and sewing along the seam.

Guess what ladies? You now have an adorable Lottie with big-ole pockets and an elastic-back waistband! I cannot wait to see your pictures! Make sure to upload them in the brownie-goose lovers group on Facebook!

And don't forget, go enter those two giveaways and have a fantastic weekend. Get some rest for the LUNA release on Monday!!

Xoxo - Amy

Allie Oop Tutorial - cinched waist dress with tassels

Hello ladies - this tutorial is actually a few days late, but I forget how hard it is to get work done in the summertime when my kiddos are home with me!

My newest pattern, the Allie Oop, debuted a few weeks back and I have been floored by the amount that you have sewn! It makes me so happy to check in on the brownie-goose lovers group on facebook and see all of the new Allie Oops that you have made! 

So, without further delay, let me get started on a tutorial to show you how to cinch the waist of the dress and add tassels to the dress length of the Allie Oop. The girl behind BG loves a pattern with versatility, so I love to share any spins you can put on your BG patterns to expand your little one's wardrobe without being too similar and without spending more money!

This is just a tutorial to go along with the pattern. I will reference the pattern tutorial throughout this post, so it is a good idea to have the pattern as well. Although, this is a spin and technique you can use on almost any shift dress pattern you may have!

Okay, your first step is to finish your dress. Ha, that makes me giggle, but honestly it is true. This simple modification is one that is best done once the dress is finished. Anytime I add a cinched waist to a dress, I like to add just a little bit of length to the hem. There is a tutorial for this modification on page 31 of the pattern tutorial. I have found that when you cinch in the waist, it brings the hem up just a smidgen. And while I love a short dress, sometimes you need to draw the line. :) So, for this dress that I made for Louisa I added about an inch to the bottom.

Once you have your Allie Oop completed, grab your model and measure down from armpit to where you want the waist of the dress to be. For Louisa, I measured down about 5". (As an aside, if you are making this modification for ready to wear and don't have a model on hand, use a back to waist measurement and measure down from the neck, or back of the dress instead of the base of the armholes. You can find a standardized back to waist measurement in this chart for the Lennon pattern.)

Now, find a flat surface and lay your Allie Oop out with the front facing up. Measure down from the base of each armhole that amount that you want for your waist. In my case, it was 5". Mark both sides with either a pin or sewing marker.

 Now, with a sewing marker, connect the 2 dots across the front of the dress. 

Once this is done, flip the dress over and do the same for the back so that you have a line for the waist across the entire dress, front and back. 

Place the dress front side up again and measure the distance from one side to the other. Split this number in two to find the center of the front of the dress. Mark the center along your waistline (black line) with a pin. 

Now, set the dress aside and grab whatever fabric you want to use for the casing for the elastic of the waist of the dress. This will go along the outside and will be seen, so use something fun! You want to cut a strip that is 1.5" wide (you may want to go 2" if you are making size 8 and up) by selvage width. We will cut this down to size later, but for me I find it easiest to just go ahead and rip my rotary cutter from selvage to selvage. 

With the dress facing up on a flat surface again, lay the strip of fabric across the front along the waistline you already drew. Make sure that you have enough to go across the front and back with a little left on the ends. You can see in the photo below how I have about 1.5" on the right side as hangover. Place a pin on your casing fabric to match up with the center front of the dress you just marked. 

Set your dress to the side and it is time to focus on our strip for the casing. In this tutorial, I have used a lawn fabric for the casing. It is a very soft fabric, but fairly lightweight and I can already see some temper tantrums awaiting for placing a buttonhole on just one layer. So, I have chosen to use some lightweight interfacing and also another piece of the fabric to give it a little bit of bulk. You do not have to do this. If you are using a regular cotton, chambray or quilters cotton - you are probably fine with just one layer but I do recommend the interfacing. 

So, cut a small square of interfacing to go on the casing where we are about to place a buttonhole. And if you are doing a second piece of fabric for bulk, go ahead and cut a small square for that (I usually just cut some off the end of my long strip) and a piece of interfacing for it as well. 

Head over to your iron and press the interfacing on the WRONG side of your casing making sure to center it over the pin you placed that marks the center of the dress. If using the extra piece of fabric, go ahead and fuse it to the wrong side as well. 

Now, on a flat surface (does anyone else have as hard of time finding one that is clear in their sewing rooms as I do?) lay your casing strip right sides up. If you using the extra fabric for bulk, center it on the wrong side of the casing over the pin marking your center. In the photo below, you can see how I have the outline marked (dashed lines) for my extra piece. You may want to attach this with either a basting stitch or pins. 

 Now, grab your button hole foot for your sewing machine. On one side you will find there is an indicator that shows the size of the finished buttonhole (shown below). You want to adjust this so that it is about 1/2" to 3/4". 

 Basically, you want it to fit right in the center of your casing. Remember, we will be pressing in the sides of the casing in just a bit, so make sure to give yourself 3/8" on the top and bottom of the casing that will be folded in. This is not rocket science and I promise you don't have to have it exact, you just don't want it too large since you will run into trouble once you go to make your casing!

Once you have the correct size button hole, place the indicator along the pin you placed on your casing for the center. Center the button hole top to bottom and the place a pin along the bottom of your indicator as shown by the black line below. 

Take your casing piece over to the machine and stitch a button hole along the center line of the casing. Remember, hold your mouth just right and say a small thank you to the person who invented interfacing. :)

Once your button hole is placed, take a deep breath. The hardest part is over. Wahoo! Now, if you used an extra piece of fabric, flip the casing strip over and trim down the fabric along the button hole as shown below and then open your button hole. 

Now, turn on some good tunes and bring your casing strip to the ironing board. We are going to create a strip of single fold tape. That sounds fancy, but all you need to do is to press 3/8" up to the wrong sides on both the top and bottom of the strip of casing. 

 When you get to the center where your button hole is, make sure that the button hole itself isn't getting folded into the seam. Sometimes I do this and it works out perfectly, and sometimes I have to fudge just a bit along the button hole. It is okay, This is an area where your tassels will be so pretty no one will notice the fudge. :)

 This is what the single fold casing should look like once finished. 

Okay, now grab your dress and once again set it on a flat surface with the front facing up. Line up the button hole on your casing with the center of the front of the dress (gray line below).

Now, using the waistline you marked on the dress earlier in the tutorial, line your casing up along this line. I usually like to place the bottom of my casing along the waistline, but again there is no right or wrong here. Pin in place as you go, making sure not to pin the front and back of the dress together. I usually will slip a long ruler in between the front and back of the dress to make sure I am not pinning front and back.

 

Continue pinning all the way around the front and to the back. When you get back around to the side of your dress where the casing begins, you will have some overlap as seen below.

Take the dress over to the ironing board and press the casing in along the side as shown below so that you have a finished, pressed edge to the casing strip. Pin this in place as well.

Once you have pinned all the way around, head over to the sewing machine and top-stitch along the top and bottom of your casing. Make sure before you do this that the button hole is open! Don't be that girl. ;)

Once you are top-stithed, grab a piece of 1/4" elastic to go inside of the casing. Now, there are two ways you can measure this. 

1. You can use your child's waist measurement and subtract 1".
2. You can use the measurement along the casing and subtract 2" (or just 1" or more, you be the designer here).

I personally like to use the second method because I find it creates a looser waist. Louisa complains about wearing things that are too tight on her waist. So, cut your piece of elastic however you please. Now, since elastic that turns around on itself in casings makes me cuckoo, I like to place a mark on the same sides of both ends of my elastic. This way when I pull it through the casing I know if I have it twisted or not. This is just a little method to my madness. :)

 Now, grab your bodkin or whatever tool you use to feed elastic and start feeding the elastic through the casing via the button hole. I will admit, this part always gets a little hairy towards the end, but hang in there and it will soon be over!

 Once you have it all the way pulled though, overlap it about an inch and then use a zig-zag stitch to secure the elastic ends together.

 Once you have it secured, feed it back in the casing and move your waistband along the elastic to distribute it evenly. Now, take a step back and admire your work. Time for tassels!!

 Just an aside, you can always just add a bow or something here and it will be just as precious, but I have been majorly crushing on tassels lately, so I went that direction. :)

Okay, first let us make the strip of bias tape that our tassels will hang on. I cut a strip of 2" bias about 14" long. This seemed like a good length for me, but honestly I could have gone a little shorter. Follow the directions for cutting and making your bias strip as shown on page 7 of the pattern tutorial. You want to top-stitch the open edge just as you would for the keyhole ties as shown on page 11. Here is my completed piece. 

Once this is done, set it to the side and we are now going to make a template for our tassels. You want to make a rectangle. Here is a bit of math/geometry for us.

• To determine the height of your rectangle, figure out how long you want your tassel, then double that. I wanted my tassels to be about 2.75", so the height of my rectangle is 5.5". (2.75*2).
• For the width, I would not recommend going any wider than 10". Since we will roll the tassels along the width, too much width will create a bulky tassel. 

So, I went with a template that is 5.5" tall by 8" wide. I used tracing paper to cut a template.

 Since I am making fabric tassels, they need to be cut on the bias so that they do not fray. In the wash they will get a sort of softer edge, but in my opinion that makes for a really great look for a tassel. So, once you have your template designed, set it on your fabric on the bias. Again, there is a tutorial on page 29 of the pattern explaining bias cuts. Cut 2 tassels out of your chosen fabric.

For ease and efficiency, I keep the two pieces of together for the next step so that I don't have to repeat my steps. Fold the pieces of fabric over along the height edge (so for me, the edge I cut at 5.5"). Now, cut from the bottom to the top every 1/2" or so as shown by the black lines below. I find this is easiest to do with the rotary cutter. However, the most important thing is to stop your cut about 1/2" from the top. DO NOT CUT ALL THE WAY THROUGH.

 Once this is done, separate the two fabric pieces as the next steps must be done individually. Open one of the tassels out flat as shown below.

 Now from one end, begin rolling the fabric up along the edge. Make sure to get the roll as compact as you can so that the tassel isn't bulky. 

Once rolled, you should have a piece of rolled fabric with cut ends on each side. 

 Now, flip one of the cut edges over to the other as shown below. 

 Once done, you should have what resembles a tassel! Wahoo!

 Okay, these next few steps require you to hold your mouth just right. :) Once you have your tassel folded, you need something to hold it in place. This is where I use my hemostats, but honestly you could pinch it with your bodkin as well. 

 With the tassel pinched together, slide one end of the bias piece you made earlier through the loop created by the tassel. 

 Fold the bias tape up and around the loop of the tassel and secure. Now, I prefer to hand-stitch this step, but only because my machine gives me fits when I try and sew with the bulk of my tassel to one side. Although it just dawned on me that you could probably use your zipper foot and be just fine. Oh well, now you know. So, sew the bias strip that you fed through the loop of the tassel to the other side of the bias strip as shown at the arrow below. Since this fabric was cut on the bias, you don't need to fret about the raw edges. 

 Once your tassel is secured to the bias tape, grab a piece of DMC floss (or you can even use a narrower strip of fabric cut on the bias as well) and tie it around your tassel right below the loop as shown below. I like to secure this with a double knot.

 Once secured, continue to wrap your DMC floss or fabric around the tassel until you have  nice row of floss/fabric. Once finished, secure the ends with a double or triple knot.

 Repeat with other tassel and opposite side of bias tape.

Now, once your tassels are finished, grab your dress and using a tool pull a loop of elastic up through the button hole.

 Feed one end of your tassel tie through the loop of the elastic.

 Once through, push the elastic back down into the casing and tie a simple knot or bow with your tassel tie. 

 And voila. You are done! What a fun way to spice up your Allie Oop! Since the tassels are bias cut, they are completely fine to go through the wash - but you can also easily remove them if you prefer!

I cannot wait to see what you ladies create with this tutorial! Make sure to post your photos to the brownie-goose lovers group on Facebook! I cannot wait for Lou to pair this with a jean jacket (if we ever get below 95 degrees here!!)

Again, thanks for being the best customers out there. And for those of you looking to back to school shop...don't forget about the Brownie-Goose Online Showcase happening this Thursday, July 30th. Have you seen some of those sneaks? I cannot get over the creativity and talent of those ladies!!

Peace out geese and hope you have a fabulous weekend!

Xoxo - Amy