sewing, a wee obsessively

 

I've been sewing a lot. Maybe a wee bit obsessively. I made two dresses for Genevieve over the last few weeks. But both are too big for her to wear now, and as we are leaving for Hawaii in a few days, I've now made a third. This last dress fits her perfectly, so she'll have one to wear on vacation. I made it out of one of Charles' torn work shirts using the tutorial here, but using a different pattern so it fits an infant. The sides of the placket on Charles' shirt were a little frayed in one spot, so I added some white pom-pom edging along both sides of the placket. But the dress still lacked something. The placket on Charles' shirt was very stiff, with some sort of reinforcement bonded to the fabric, and it made the dress seem starched.  I had a long remnant of dotted Swiss batiste l that gave me an idea. In my late-night etsy surfing I  had come across shirt dress with a petticoat underneath and I wanted to see if I could add it to the bottom. After some trial and error I figured out how to add it to the hem and then create another hem that folded over to make it look like the ruffle was poking out. I am so pleased with the dress--Charles said I've been walking around the house "fondling" it.

Because I've been sewing so much for Genevieve, Ike has gotten a little jealous. So I decided to make capes for him and Lola to wear when they play dress up. I had some green and gold fabric with little vines that I bought last year in the garment-district. I wanted to use it with dark green velvet. I found another post on Made that I used to make a pattern, but nothing prepared me for how difficult it is to sew slippery material to velvet. I ended up basting the whole thing together before I used the sewing machine. But it came out well, it was my first time using a flowery top stitch option on my sewing machine. Now I have to make one for Lola, in pink and red. But that will have to wait until after Hawaii.