I worked on the dress a little bit recently and neglected to take pictures, so there may be some strange gaps between part one and two. With the show being only six weeks away, I wanted to finish as much of this as possible before going into crazy costume mode.  I’m happy to say the dress now has the basics down, and just needs a little finishing work! Pinning the skirt pieces together.  I love that this dress has pockets. […]

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With the flamingo shirtdress pretty much done and ready to wear out of the house (when it gets warmer!), it’s time to move on to my next project.  This one in particularly needs to get done soon, as I am hoping to wear it to the “premiere” of our musical in March and I know I’ll soon be sewing all costumes, all the time. I call this my “Pure Imagination” dress because our show is Willy Wonka, Jr.  I had […]

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I am almost done!  The only thing left is to finish up the buttonholes (I admit that I have never tried my buttonhole foot on my machine and didn’t want this project to be the first one I tried it on so I’m handsewing them), but I got the dress to the point that it could be on me. Today’s first project was hemming, which I didn’t take any pictures of.  For the first time in a couple days, my […]

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Monday night I came down with a stomach virus, which had me in bed for most of the week recovering.  I’m still not 100 percent but I was able to move around the house more today, and I was able to get some work done on my flamingo shirt dress. Sewing the waistband facing onto the bodice. Pleating the skirt pieces.  Over the years I’ve come to like pleating more than gathering, technique-wise.  This was another thing that I thought […]

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Before leaving for the weekend yesterday, I made some more progress on the shirt dress.   Slipstitching the yoke facing to the  shoulder seam. Completed sleeves, waiting to be attached to the bodice. Full bodice done!  I have a slight problem with the alignment of the gathers in the back (I forgot to take a picture of it), so before moving on to the skirt I need to fix it.  They’re not centered exactly as I would like but nothing […]

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My interfacing arrived, and so I was able to make some progress on my shirt dress tonight – and I love it so far, even though it’s not even a little bit close to wearing it! Ironing on the interfacing – it went in all the band and collar pieces to stabilize them. Prepping the bodice darts.  I can remember a time when darts were the most confusing thing I’ve ever seen – now they’re easy-peasy! Pinning the darts and […]

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This year, I really want to start perfecting the art of making my own clothes, particularly for the summer.  I love sundresses, and though I can find plenty of them in various stores, there’s a ton of adorable, quirky fabric I want to use. I recently set to work on my Flamingo Shirt Dress, using this great fabric I found at Rifle Paper Co.  I’ve been a longtime fan of their artwork and was so excited when they came out with […]

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For this post, I am going to use mostly the journal entry I wrote on the plane the day after it happened.  I may need to add in a detail or two, but I looked it over and it seemed pretty thorough and very “in the moment” so I thought it was better than just me remembering what happened.  However, keep in mind that I did write it while very tired on the airplane.  Also note that I wrote the […]

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Day three dawned bright and early as we had a long road trip ahead of us again.  The day was dreary again, but that wasn’t a deterrent and we were surprised and delighted by some sun that came out later in the day, on what was perhaps one of my favorite spots on the whole trip.  This post is going to be VERY picture heavy, as there were so many great ones from this day, and we saw so many […]

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