Vintage Dress Redo.

A friend of mine from church often brings me little sewing projects she could use some help with.   Recently, she showed up with a bag of vintage dresses from her Grandmother and wondered if I could repair them.  Here is the result of one that was super cute!

Here is what it looked like when I took it out of the bag:

Yes, it was a jumbled mess with a hole on the lower front of the skirt.

Here is the repair I did on the hole:

From the outside:

From the inside:

Then I remember I had this great vintage, wide cotton lace in my supplies and sewed it all around the bottom of the skirt.   It effectively covered the repair work, doesn't it look like the lace came with the dress?

I just might have a new hobby........

Mom's bag, Mother's Day!

For Mother's Day, I decided to make my mom another bag out of some fabric we picked out together a few years ago. Yes, I have fabric in my sewing room from a few years ago....just a little....

It was exciting adding some new details and the fabric was great to work with. The wool-felt flowers, as always, are one of my favorite things to create!

Here is the front of the bag:

And the back:

A magnetic-snap closure on the front:

The wool-felt flower on the front pocket:

The wool-felt flowers on the back, the fabric was so inspiring!:

Happy Mother's Day mom, thanks for passing on your love of sewing and teaching me how to sew! I love you!!!

Ashlynn's Christmas Dress

I know, I know. It's May and I'm talking Christmas. However, after 36+ plus inches of snow this winter, it was very hard to convince Ashlynn to put her Christmas dress on and model for pictures outdoors. C'mon, it's the best lighting, who wants indoor shots?

So, with only a bit of delay, here is/was Ashlynn's Christmas dress.....

This is what I sketched after discussing with Ashlynn what she wanted:

The finished product.....loving her expression:

The back:

Some beautiful beads Mom, Paula and I found and put on the waistband:

A close-up of the sleeve:

The beads on the neckline:

And now for the rest of the story.

When making a dress completely from scratch, i.e. with no pattern, it can take a while. Especially when you do it when your parents are visiting and you're kind of in a time crunch. Mom and I worked through an entire day in attempt to get the dress done. We felt like we were on Project Runway racing against the clock, which was Ashlynn going to see the Nutcracker that evening.

We lost. In fact, I'm pretty sure we heard a faint "You're out" with a slight German accent in it.

But alas, I did finish the dress and just in time for Sunday service at church. It was fun creating something from ideas in Ashlynn's head and it was awesome having mom here to help!

Mom's bag.

For mom's birthday this year, I decided to make her something. That might sound crazy since I make things all the time.....but so does mom. She is constantly sewing and quilting, so I often don't think if making her an exciting gift. It was fun getting this bag together, adding a band around the top with a snap closure and some fun jewels.

Here is the finished product:

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!