Well, I’ve been visiting Hancock stores again, and found a small crop of garments that I couldn’t wait to share with you… hopefully these will help you to find some inspiration as well!

As I walked through the store, this trio caught my eye. You may recognize the blue dress on the left side, that’s been shown previously on my Flickr pictures. But the others are completely new to me, and together, they looked very cool and ‘spring like’.
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Green Spring Dress – McCalls Pattern #5380
This cute and light-weight dress was made using the Tutti Frutti Plisse’ fabric currently being featured at Hancock Fabrics stores around the country. I think this would be a great dress for a swim or beach party (assuming that you didn’t want to wear your swimsuit instead). The sleeveless look would be nicely accented with a jacket, or wear just as it’s shown here.
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Bright Blue Linen – Top: Sandra Betzina Vogue Pattern #7636 -Skirt: McCalls Pattern #2029
This simple outfit is made using a bright blue linen. Looks like the perfect ‘everything’ outfit to me! Can be dressed up or down with a few simple jewlery choices. You can’t see it very well in the picture, but the pin on the lapel is an Easter Egg pin – cute!
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Light Blue Suit – Butterick Pattern #5047
This outfit at really shows it’s charm in person, the picture simply cannot do justice to the diagonal detail of the skirt. Suit is made of a light blue suiting fabric – a great outfit for the office when you want for a professional, yet feminine look.
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Ribbon Top Dress – New Look Pattern #6468
Now here is a fun and simple dress for just about any event you might want to wear it to. The fabric is a rayon challis print, so will be comfortable in that warmer weather. The pattern is labeled as “easy to sew”, should be a great dress for a novice seamstress.

Here is a close-up of the top of the dress, notice that a ribbon has been used to make the straps and to detail the front of the dress. Button holes are used to weave the ribbon in and out, and then a nice bow is tied at the front of the dress (a suggestion is to secure the final look of the bow with a few stitches so you don’t have to re-tie it all the time).
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Well, looks like I need to get some sewing done – some great ideas here, now I just need to turn a few of these into pieces in my wardrobe! How about you?
Sheila Reinke, Heart of Sewing
Sheila