The Mom Song

This has nothing to do with sewing but I still wanted to share this. Make sure that the volume on your computer is up.



Isn't that great? I hear myself and my mom in every word.

Have a wonderful day!

Simplicity 3515

Well, I'm happy to announce that Hannah is now the proud owner of the first outfit from her SWAP! Shall we get started with the review?


The dress is just beautiful until she turns sideways.

I'm not happy about this view at all!!! She will NOT be taking off the jacket. I fully lined the dress so it was not necessary for me to use seam binding on the underarms. I left the hem of the lace mesh raw.

On to the jacket, Hannah did not want the bands that went around the sleeves nor the one that goes on the back of the jacket. That was fine with me - less work - fewer buttons. She did want to be able to button the jacket closed - so I added 2" to the center front when I cut it out, and added 1/4" to the center front of the lining. I think that I will probably added 2 more buttons and maybe 1/4" shoulder pads. It looks as if it needs a little more structure. I will most likely also go back and top-stitch the sleeve ruffle down, so that it doesn't "bell" quite so much.

Any opinions?

Hannah is very pleased with her new dress. She was delighted when we went shopping for shoes to go with it - her first official pair of high heels.

By the way, I didn't notice until I uploaded my pictures that our dog has made his way onto the internet. That is my precious Mr. P's face in the very first photo.

Update!

Have you ever gotten an idea and started off with tons of enthusiasm, only to start wondering what in the world was I thinking? This is turning out to be one of those projects.

I am slooooowly working on Hannah's dress. Very slowly. I did cut out the dress last week, but I did not start sewing on it until yesterday.


First of all, while I like the dress and jacket I think that the proportions are off. The dress needs to be longer or the jacket needs to be a little shorter. See this picture of a finished outfit over on PatternReview. Please keep in mind that this is MY opinion, I know that it is not everyones. To that end, I lengthened the dress a total of 15". Yea, you read right, 15". We're going for the maxi-look here.


I cut out the dress out of satin and then decided that it needed to be fully lined. This satin is very light weight and almost see-thru and I know that Hannah will never remember to wear a slip underneath. Off to the sewing room to search for lining, I only had 2 yards of 45", not enough to cut out the front and back. So, I cut what I could and then had to wait 4 days before I could get a fabric store. Ugh!


On Saturday, I finally got the lining cut out and decided that I was going to use a turquoise mesh lace on the skirt part of the dress. Like an idiot, it was not until I was sewing it up that I thought to myself, "Why didn't you just cut the front and back pattern pieces where it was needed and add seam allowances, instead of having to match everything with this incredibly flimsy fabric?"

I had to line up the bottoms of the dress and the lace and then pin them together. Sew around, fold over and then sew 1/4" from the fold. It looked like the above picture from the inside.

This is what it looks like from the front. I then topstitched all the way around to hold down the fold.

The tie is actually three pieces consisting of 2 pieces about 30" long (these are folded over and sewn in half length-wise and then become the part that goes around the waist to tie in the back). The third piece is about 6" long and is sewn to the front to hold the gathers in the front.

I sewed those on. Had Hannah "try" on the dress and realized that I needed to lower the tie. Off it came and was resewn 3/4" lower. I decided that I needed to take a break, so I made myself sew the lining to the dress at the under arms, understitch and press. It is now sitting on my ironing board awaiting my return (sometime tomorrow - I hope).

One Less UFO

Because I have lived in travel trailers for over 16 years I have very few UFOs. Before yesterday I had only 4 - I now have just 3. YEA ME!


Picture this scenario:

Mommy at her sewing desk, industrially sewing and in walks her precious 5 yo.

Rachael, "Mommy, when are you going to sew my dress?"

Mommy, "Let me get this sewn up first."

Rachael, "Okay."


This occured about 3 times - can you feel the guilt building up? The last time I promised her that it would be the very next thing. As a result, I did not sew for anything for over 3 weeks. Finally the withdrawal symptoms became too much, I gave in and sewed it up. Talk about a sigh of relief - I can go onto something that I really want to do.

That doesn't sound very nice, does it? I don't know why, but I just was not interested in this outfit (it's New Look 6666). Which is kind of ridiculous when you consider that she looks absolutely precious. This picture was taken about 10 minutes before bedtime and she was very upset that she had to take it off to put her nightgown back on.

Next up? I have to start making something for Hannah. I picked out Simplicity 3515, she picked out a light blue (almost turquoise) satin for the dress and a matching stretch poly. suede for the jacket. These will be the first pieces of Hannah's spring/summer SWAP.