Mama's Dress.

As I mentioned A couple of days ago, when I made Ashynn's dress for Easter, I actually had to make myself one first to help with the sizing down. Actually, I only made the bodice and part of the skirt front, finished hers and then finished mine. Can you tell I was a little short on time?

Here, I'll show you. Instead of continuing with the zig-zag pattern, I cut one solid piece of fabric for the back skirt. It's supposed to be that way, right?

Thanks to Ashlynnie for the photos!

The bag.

My friend, Megan, asked me to make her sister a bag for her birthday. She said I could have as much fun as I wanted in adding anything extra and creative.....here is what I came up with:

Who doesn't like more flowers!

And ruffles are a basic requirement, right?

Along with some fun stitching and buttons:

And more ruffles:

And ofcourse, with Martha's Tote, you always get lots of pockets!

Happy Birthday Hannah!

The Easter Dress.

This year Ashlynn chose Anna Maria Horner's Evening Empire Dress for her Easter dress. It's a super cute dress with a zig-zag quilt pattern on the skirt...but, it only came in adult sizes. So here is what I did:

Step 1. Make one for myself so I could more easily size it down for Ashlynn.
Step 2. Procrastinate making hers because that seemed like it would be a pain.
Step 3. Less than one week before Easter size it down to perfection.
Step 4. Procrastinate making the skirt bottom....it won't take that long, the hard part (bodice fitting) is over...
Step 5. With only three days to get it together, call mom in near tears and hope she has some "options".
Step 6. Follow through with mom's brilliant idea and get the dress made....just in time!

The zig-zag patter on the dress comes from many small triangle pieces (these were larger on the original pattern, but remember, I sized it down) sewn together to look like zig-zags. this requires accuracy for perfect "points" and achievement of the desired look. I finished the front (ofcourse Ashlynn wanted it to be floor length!) and didn't know how I would possibly ever get the back done.

In comes mom to the rescue......what would I do without her?

"All you have to do is sew a bunch of strips of fabric and lay the front piece on the diagonal and cut that out for the back. Then it still looks pieced but will save you some time!"

Here I am sewing the strips:

You can see I placed the front piece on top to cut out the back piece on the diagonal:

How the diagonals turned out on the back:

A close up of the zig-zag...I ironed it like crazy, this was not the most cooperative fabric....

The improvised back...I actually like the way this drapes better:

The finished front...Ashlynn loved it! She picked out all of the fabric and it's order:

She calls it her prairie girl dress and said she wants to wear it every single day. With the time it took to make, I'm all for that!