The Dress Finished

Yesterday, January 26, marked a great day in the history of mankind. The dress Joanna asked me to make a mere 12 days earlier was completed. In six short days of shopping, recreating patterns, and sewing madness, a masterpiece was created.

Winding the bobbin with red.



Jacket lining.



Putting it together.

Jacket all done.

Flowers like this?

Flowers all together like this.
Oh yeah.

Sewing flowers on.



Flowers on.



Tah dah.

Tah dah again.

The final pictures of the dress aren't really that terrific. It was night, it was dark, the lighting wasn't great. But you can at least get the idea. The making of this dress was definately fun for the most part and took a lot of thread. I emptied two 274 yard spools and used thread from three other spools. That was kind of cool. I'm glad it is done; now I can concentrate on getting my school work done. I'm also glad I got to make it. Hopefully soon I'll have a picture of Joanna wearing it to post.

Day Five

Here we go--second to last day.

Mounds of dress stuff.
Notice how well the iron goes with everything.
And the pins stick out.
Sorry:)

Getting it together.



Help!!!



Beginning the pinning.

All pinned.



You spin me right 'round, baby, right 'round, like a record,
baby, right 'round 'round 'round.
Actually, more like here we go 'round the mulberry bush.
Whatever the case, it was a lot of going in circles.














Sewing the lining.
Look closely. The needle and thread are there.



The DRESS, end of Day Five.

The end of the flower cutting out.

And there you have it--Day Five.

Stay tuned for ..... the Last Day.

The Dress, Days Three and Four

There are a lack of pictures for these days but here is what there is:



The jacket.



Jacket lining.

  



Isn't it interesting how similar the jacket and lining are? Mind boggling.

Flower beginnings.



Working on flowers.



And that's all she wrote.

Picture wise.

Sunday was day three and all it saw accomplished was cutting out the jacket pieces and beginning work on the flowers.

Monday was day four and it saw a trip to JoAnn's. When I was there last week to buy materials, I was assured that there was organza in the back, it just wasn't out yet. So I went Monday and looked where it should be as well as every other shelf. I did not see what I wanted so I got nylon netting and went to the cutting tables where I asked about organza.

The woman said, "Oh, I know what you're talking about." She asked someone and led me to the first place I'd looked. Sure enough, there is organza, but the thin, soft stuff one might use for bridal projects, not the stiff stuff I wanted for poofing out a skirt. So I got nylon netting and spent the afternoon cutting it out. This is what I did not take pictures of because I was so not excited about it. There are plenty for Day Five though.

To be continued.....

The Dress, Day Two

Here we go--day two.


Cutting the interfacing.



Windng the bobbin under Seth's supervision.





Winding the bobbin up close.





Ready to go.




Seth trying the pieces out.
"Is this a sleeve?" he wanted to know.



Sewing along.










First side of the first piece gathered.

Second side of the first piece gathered.

Zipper in! Hooray!

Foundation.

Sewing in the lining.

There would be a picture of what I accomplished yesterday but it looks funny just laying on the table and sewing something in for hanging was not on the to do list. It isn't on today's list either but I may do something about it.

Stay tuned.....









The Dress

For my birthday this year I received a request from Joanna. Would I please make her a dress for a dance she is attending on February 5? Of course, I would love to make her a dress. The fact that she is in Idaho, I am in Massachusetts and have only three weeks to make the dress and send it to her? Just an added challenge and another step on my journey.

The target dress can be found at the following address:

http://www.promgirl.com/shop/dresses/viewitem-PD585089

As I was not able to find a pattern exactly like it, I am making changes to the pattern most like it I could find. If I had a couple of months I would be able to come up with something even better but I'm pretty sure the end results will be fairly good.


This is the dress fabric. It actually is more
grey than this picture shows.





This is the jacket fabric.



The new improved skirt pattern.

The zebra patterns.

Bodice pattern glued.

Bodice pattern cut out.

The first cut.

The second cut.

On the bias.

And again.



The last cut of the day.



And that is what was accomplished yesterday. I still need to get organza for the skirt but I figure I can do that Monday because I have enough to do today to take up all afternoon. It will be interesting to see how far I get. If I finish all I can without the organza, I have the jacket and flowers to make.

Stay tuned.....

Journal

It appears that writing a blog is something like writing a journal: sometimes it happens regularly, sometimes it doesn't. It also seems that the more is happening, and therefore there is more that should be written about, not as much gets written. Too bad this can't be remedied by multitasking. Actually, I suppose it could if you have a program such as Dragon and you can talk to your journal or blog while you are doing something else.

This picture was taken in August. Across the back are Daniel, Joseph, Joanna and Laura. In front are Cedric, Seth and Amena. It was a rainy day.

All of them were born at home and/or with a midwife.

Laura was born October 28, 1991. Present were her father, my mother, Liz Travis, the midwife, and Liz's assistant; I don't happen to remember her name at the moment. I remember that we had a big plastic sheet on the floor in the livingroom in order that I could squat during labor and delivery. At the time, although it was a good idea, I really didn't know enough about the whole process for it to work well. It is a good way to get a baby out but when I was squatting, it seemed that everything wanted to happen too fast and I wasn't ready for that. I also remember being on the bed wondering how I was ever going to finish the process. I'd given birth to Alisha five years earlier but when she was born, I really didn't know what I was doing or what to expect. With Laura, I knew what was ahead of me and I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to do it. Being pregnant was great but giving birth wasn't exactly on my list of favorite things to do.

More later.

Invitation

Just a little note to anyone who might be visiting, please feel free to leave comments. I'd love to see what you have to say.