sewing and such

I've been doing a lot of sewing lately.  I really do love to sew.  I think I'd love it a lot more if my sewing machine wasn't 100 years old.  Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration, but only slight.  My grandma gave it to me when she got a new one twelve years ago.  She had already had it for long while.  It has her social security number carved into the front.  It's supposed to do a myriad of stitches, but only straight and zigzag work anymore.  It has some tension issues (don't we all!).  Even so, it does the job, and I'm glad to have it.

I finished two princess dresses in the last little while.  The first was pink (maybe salmon?), and I thought I had a picture, but I guess I forgot.  I'll try to get one next time she wears it.  I got the fabric on clearance at Hursts.  The next one could possibly be categorized as a disaster.  I was really excited to make it, but I made an unfortunate fabric choice.  The yellow satin-y stuff I ended up with was ombred (fades from light to dark), but in the scale of Elise's little body, the fading didn't really work out.  The pattern pieces were so small that there was no noticable fading on any one piece, but I did end up with pieces of different shades.  In the end I opted to use the lighter sections for the bodice and the darker sections for the skirt.  My next fatal error was in sizing.  I made a size 4.  Now in the real world that might have worked out great.  In pattern world, that means extra extra too big.  Pattern sizes are not the same as clothing sizes in stores.  A 3 probably would have been pushing it.  A picture is the best way to explain:

For this picture, I had the skirt pinned up about 10 inches.  Her unfortunate hair doesn't make the dress look any better.  Anyway, we passed this on to Eliana, and it fit her almost perfectly, with a little room to grow(and it looked much much better, I promise).  Eliana will pass it back to Elise in approximately 5 years, when Elise is finally the right size to wear it.



I also finished another cool little sewing project.  A couple of years ago, my Grandma Adams gave me some of her stash of fabric.  One of the things in the stash was a dress that had the bodice chopped off.  Not sure why someone chopped off the bodice, but whatever.  The dress happened my Aunt Jan's bridesmaid dress from my parents wedding.  I haven't really known what to do with it, but I've kept it around (packrat?).  The other day, I was looking at a dress pattern, wondering which fabric to use, and it hit me, the skirt might be just enough fabric to get the job done.  Here's the original:

Jan is the second from the left.

All the dresses had a daisy print, but it's hard to tell from this picture.    Maybe I should click on the color correct button in photoshop.  Ahhh, that's better.  How in the world does the computer do that?  It's really amazing to me that the computer can fix the picture in one little click.

Anyway, here is the new and improved version:

This was a really fun project for me.  I used two presser feet that I had never used before.  I installed a standard zipper (I've always used invisible before).  I pleated.  I did a yoke and a slit neckline, and they both look okay!  It was really a sewing triumph for me.  Isn't it cute!

Since I stole my mom's wedding album to scan in the original dress picture, I thought I'd throw a few more pictures out there.  What says 1976 more than PIP (or whatever they call this)?:

My mom with my Grandpa Sharp