Dress Shirt

I’m pretty positive that this will not be very impressive. This afternoon, I finally faced the dilemma that is What-To-Wear-To-My-Bachelorette-Party. It’s been a dilemma that couldn’t be delayed, any longer. We leave, tomorrow morning, for Nashville. I’m in one of those stages where I hate all of my clothes and the way they look on me. I was in a bind.

Once free from the daily grind, I came home and tore apart the closet for good party possibilities. I’m aiming for comfort and style. It’s a tough compromise for a girl, you know?

I finally found this dress. I can’t remember why I originally bought it, but it may have been for my sister’s rehearsal dinner. I didn’t wear it very often. I started to wear it somewhere when The Fiance and I started dating, but he absolutely hated it. It got relegated to the rear of the closet.

Please excuse the dress form. I got it, last Christmas, and have had the damnedest time getting it to resemble my body. Various items are too small, too low, too broad, etc. It’s a work in process.

So, that was the dress I thought to wear. It really isn’t as flattering, now, as it was when I first bought it. There are new lumps and bumps that shouldn’t be wear they are. The dropped waist just doesn’t work for me.

What’s a girl to do? Many girls would run out to find something else to buy. Being short on funds and being a crafty girl, I turned that dress into this:

What do you think?

This was my first attempt at sewing a knit fabric (this happens to be t-shirt material). It was difficult, but I’m pleased with the result. I’m afraid it doesn’t look great on the dress form, but I do like the way it fits.

My First Foray Into Digital Scrapbooking

As the title of this post states, this is my first time trying to document memories via a creative, digital format. I’ve made paper-based scrapbook pages, before, and enjoyed it. I dislike the feel of needing so much stuff to call oneself a scrapbooker, though. My tastes have also changed quite a bit from the days of my paper scrapbooking. While reading various blog posts, today, I happened upon Molly Irwin’s blog, where her latest project is documenting 100 Reasons to Love Summer. Her style of page layout was something I was instantly drawn to. With them in mind, and Elise Blaha’s mini-books of favorites, I set out to give digital scrapbooking a go.

This is a landscape-oriented 8.5″ x 11″ layout. I made it in Photoshop with virtually no extra stuff. Some layers have drop shadows. That’s about as fancy as I get in Photoshop, right now.

What do you think?

Banner Love

Have I told you guys that I’m a letters person? I like the way that letters look. I love looking through fonts to pick the perfect ones. My favorite discovery of the past year is how to use glyphs in Adobe Illustrator. I can’t do anything else in that stupid program, but I can write pretty words. I also love my handwriting and have worked since the second grade to be satisfied with it.

It’s no surprise, then, that when I saw this image on one of my new favorite sites, Moda BakeShop, I was inspired.

Happy Birthday Banner by Jen Duncan (tutorial)

As soon as I saw this I thought, “That’s a solution to the banner problem!”

See, we are getting married under a tent. This tent will be in the backyard of a home. I’ve been struggling with how to dress up one end of the tent so that there is a nice area defined where the ceremony will take place. The guests will be facing toward a farm field (hopefully without cows), which would be pretty enough, but I felt the need to kind of set off the area as special. Churches lend automatic dramatic backdrops with altars and stained glass and such. While ours will be far from “dramatic” I’m hoping it will at least be sweet and special.

Since I’m not into revealing all the surprises I have up my bridal sleeve, I’m not going to spell it all out, but if you know me and you see that inspiration picture, you’ve probably guessed what I’m doing. Here are some teaser photos to help even more!

In progress zig zag. I love this stitch, almost as much as my new pinking shears. Something about a perfect sawtooth makes me smile. I also love that lit up “Fix” button. It’s one part of my kick-ass sewing machine that helps a rookie like me do a better job on sewing projects. I will never be able to sew on a more manual machine. Please excuse the dust on the shank, there.

In progress with my favorite little flower pins. I need more of these. They are perfect for rotary cutting because they allow your ruler to lay flat, unlike other pins.

Those last two should totally give away the whole project. I’m just excited to have another task to mark as “Complete” on the Monster To Do List! I’m also completely excited to say that this whole project cost me $3.70. All the fabric was from my stash, scraps left over from past projects. The ribbon was the only purchase I needed!

Vintage Dress Plans

So, the wedding planning has been put on hold until after my best friend’s marriage at the end of May. I am so excited to see her become a Mrs. and be a part of the celebration. I only hope that I don’t trip and fall walking down the aisle. That is always my greatest fear whenever  I have to appear in front of anyone.

One thing that I did accomplish, though, was to choose a dress. You’ll remember that there were quite a few different options that I was considering. I went back to the idea I originally had, right after our engagement. I’m going to make my dress. Really. I can do it, I promise.

Can you tell that people have been skeptical about this plan?

I couldn’t decide which pattern I liked best, so I ordered these three:

Once I got my hands on the patterns, it was easy to decide. There’s just something more glamourous about the 2902 pattern. Maybe it’s the gloves in the artistic rendering, maybe it’s that it looks to be made of satin. Whatever it is, that will be my wedding dress.

My mom and I went to our local Hancock Fabrics to see what the selection was for fabric. Being that this is prom season, they had an abundance of fancy apparel fabric. What’s better? It was on sale! We deliberated over the rustle of taffeta, the dull satin, the heavy brocades and eventually settled on a shiny, ivory satin with a white hang-free lining. Since I’ll be making this view of the dress, we considered using a different color for the yoke and hem detail. However, we weren’t happy with the selection of green satins (naturally, it would be green!) so I’ll make those from the same ivory satin as the dress.

I’m so excited about this project! I’m really excited that my mom thought it wise to practice with a muslin. When I told her I already had plenty of muslin to make a test run, she said, “What if it’s good enough to wear, though? You’ll never wear a dress made out of muslin.” So, we headed over to the cotton area and decided on some of the Tutti-Fruitti collection to make a test dress. Of course, it was on sale, too!

After I finish the dress project, I’ll have two dresses to wear – one for the ceremony and one for the honeymoon! I may also end up putting those other patterns I bought to good use and make some honeymoon sundresses from them. I kind of like the idea of tooling around on the beach in a sweet vintage dress.

Major Machine Malfunction

Umm. There’s a Christmas gift crisis in my household. I finished the top of a quilt, today, put all the borders on, cut and sewed the backing fabric, sandwiched the quilt and started to machine quilt it when my sewing machine went kaput. Amid whanging, banging, rurrring and flat-out stopping, I’ve realized that there is a problem. On my holiday wish list is a machine tune up and the Husqvarna-Viking dealer. I am so so so sad that I didn’t get it done, earlier. Now, I’m afraid that I will have to attempt hand quilting for the first time on a major project with a very short time frame.

Shit. Shit. Shit.