Pioneer Dress #2

 This is Lila's "Laura dress". It is made from a homespun-type fabric we bought from Joann. I followed an old pattern Simplicity 9708 that my friend Diane had given me. I used the new version of this pattern for Maggie's dress.  Lila wore this outfit to piano lessons today. I don't know what her teacher must think. Between her bike helmets, outlandish fashion, and pioneer dresses, my girl certainly has her own styles. I miss the (very short) days when I could dress her like a doll where everything matched from head-to-toe.  These days, if I try to make suggestions, she calmly tells me, "Mommy, I'm different than this family, please let me wear it". She has her own style. You can't tell here, but under the dress she is wearing her purple patent leather flats because "they are the most old-fashioned shoes" she owns. I know some day she will probably come to me (as I did to my mother) and say "How could you let me leave the house like that!?" I think I will calmly reply "Just wait, my darling, wait until you have a daughter of your own, then we'll talk".

As a funny side note, I mentioned that Maggie wore her dress to church last weekend. Afterward, word got back to me that a middle-school age young woman saw Maggie wearing her dress and asked her mother flatly, "Did you make me wear dresses like that when I was little?" To which her crafty mother simply responded, "No". The young woman was relieved and said "Good." 

I do hope my girls look back on all this and smile. I do hope they remember these days with fond and joyful memories as I know I will. I hope they know their mother loved them well.

A frustrating project

I made this swim cover-up for my niece from a towel. It has got to be one of the most frustrating projects I have ever worked on.  I got the bright idea as I was perusing Target.  I had one of those infamous "I could make that" moments. Oy. I checked the internet thinking surely someone had this idea before me.  Sure enough, there were several patterns.  However, the patterns for this style cost money.  Being the cheapo, I mean spendthrift, that I am, I thought to myself, "I don't need no stinking pattern".  So, I bought the towel, envisioned my project and set to work.  I had just received a copy of Sew News in the mail that had a tutorial about how to make a gathered top, like this project has, using elastic thread.  I had never worked with elastic thread, but the tutorial made it sound simple saying something like "wind your bobbin with elastic thread, sew horizontal lines close together down the top".  Ok, maybe that's my paraphrasing, but that's basically all the info it gave in regards to elastic thread and how this project might prove difficult. I did understand that the whole gathering process works better on lightweight material, but I also saw the pattern listed above that was clearly made from a beach towel using the same process.  

After stitching my horizontal lines with the elastic thread for the first couple rows, I was seeing NO gathering taking place.  After reading numerous tutorials and tips given by bloggers and the like, I finally was able to trouble-shoot somewhat.  It was quite frustrating because one blog would tell me to wind the elastic tight, while the other would say loose.  Eeek.  Some blogs talked about changing the bobbin tension. All my years of crafting and I didn't know how to change my bobbin tension... more tutorial searching... Ugh! 

When I finally got it to work somewhat, what I ended up with was a not-tight-enough swim cover.   I decided to cut the whole thing down to size, about half.  Which meant that the skirt was now not full enough to pull over.  It has to be stepped into.  So, the ribbon straps that I originally applied had to be removed because they made it so you couldn't step in! I replaced those with FOE that I had on hand in a pretty tealy-green.  Then, when I went to stitch the other side up, the seams were fraying.  OMG, I was about to throw the whole thing away. 

However, I got it to where everything seemed to be holding steady. I emailed my SIL to warn her of the need to step into the cover-up and put the darn thing in a gift bag.  I mentioned the gift to my niece since I was out of town during her party.  She told me she hadn't tried it on yet, but "It's really cute!" Thank God someone thinks so!

Scarlett O'hara would be proud

I’ve been on a crafty kick lately.  So when my dear friend Melissa brought me a bag of fabric, I was kinda excited.  One of the pieces was a sheer curtain with a pretty tie-dyed/batik kind of feel.  I was really digging it.  After considering what it should become, I turned again to my new One-Yard Wonders book and immediately decided it needed to become the strapless tunic.  I tried to take advantage of the finished edges as much as possible.  The only change I really made was that, once I was finished, I was unhappy with the ....well...what are they called... the slits on the bottom on the side that allow ease for booty.  Anyway, they just didn't look very finished as I've never been very good at making teeny tiny hems.  So, I made some bias tape from the fabric and covered the slits with it.  I'm much happier and I think it looks more finished and less homemade. 

Now I just have to find somewhere appropriate to wear it.  =)