sarahmichelef

Remember last year when I made TRex a birthday dress? She (rightly) thought that this should be a tradition, and I can't say that I disagree with her.  Recently she told me that she wanted her birthday dress this year to have stars on it; later she amended that request to stars, diamonds, and triangles.  I asked her which one of those was most important if I couldn't find fabric that had all three and she said that diamonds were most important.  Today as I was browsing the internets I found the fabric pictured over there to the right and nabbed 4 yards of it just to be sure.  I haven't quite settled on a pattern for it yet, but I'm leaning towards either this one (actually a mashup of those two garments... taking the longer sleeves from the shirt and putting them on the dress, using a dark pink trim and possibly also for the placket) or this one.  The latter is more little-girl-ish, I think, and cutesy, which is not appealing to me as much.  Is it possible for a five-year-old to be sophisticated?  Because the first one is much more sophisticated.

I will also be making her a ruffled skirt in two very loud pink fabrics (one of which you have seen if you've seen the pictures of her bedroom curtains - just call her Miss Scarlet) for her first day of kindergarten.  The other is in the same color family only it's flowered.  The garment will be just her style - out of control loud & bright.  I may have to physically restrain her from wearing a THIRD pattern with it.

I also have in my sewing room fabric to make a kimono top for Cora, who is the best three-week-old niece a girl could ask for.

That oughta keep me busy for a while, right?  And of course I have Caleb's hosen to make as well...

Got the rest of the black dress cut out today, and the first bits of sewing done.  What do the following directions mean to you?

"Stitch center back seam of skirt back and side front from lower edge to small dot; back-stitch at small dot to reinforce seam."

I was totally confused until I remembered that "skirt back and side front" was the name of the piece.  Anyway, put the entire back of the dress together in about half an hour.  There's a little point at the back of the bodice that was a little funky - I'm following the directions and trimming the seam allowances and zig-zagging, and it didn't want to lie flat.  So I went back in and straight-stitched just the very point of it, where all three seams came together.  It lies much more nicely now.  Happily hanging out draped over the back of the dress form right now.  And if it looks as good on me as it does on the dress form, it's gonna be great.  The fall of the skirt is lovely.

Knits are still very squirrely.  And I have black wool fuzz all over my sewing machine.

And now I'm off to sleep.