It's actually warm enough to wear this dress today, when the wind's not blowing. This one was total instant gratification: a thrifted housedress + japanese craft book + 10 minutes.

don't mind the model, she's got a little cookie in the mouth. hard to catch her not eating.

I’ve been wanting to make Phoebe a bubble skirted dress for quite a while now so I picked up this pattern, Simplicity 2680, for kids clothes sewing week. I’d cut the dress out of my new very cool striped nani iro cotton gauze and was all ready to go but for some reason it seemed daunting so I put it off all weekend. Yesterday I had some time to sew but totally was not feeling it. I forced myself to just do the first step and that got the ball rolling. I was distracted, in and out of the sewing room, but I went through the motions and voila, it’s a dress. I love this dress. I feel like it made itself despite my bad attitude. And man, it’s soooo cute. The fabric was a perfect match for the dress and the pattern was easy and even my zipper went in okay. I think this is a candidate for the junebaby’s birthday dress.

We’ve been the house of funk lately (and not in a good way) so I’m hoping we can implement my new going through the motions methodology to further successes. Let’s turn this ship around!

Yesterday I put the ball point needle in my machine to make a dress for Phoebe from some Heather Ross jersey fabric I’ve had forever. I used a pattern from the girly style book but made the longer dress version. So everything went together no problem. Between my serger and the ball point needle it was a breeze. And it looks nice on a hanger but on Phoebe it looks a mess. First, she hates the big floppy ties on her shoulders. Second, I’m not a fan of the v-neck. Third, it was super flared and way too long. This picture was taken after my first attempt at a fix which was to trim it to a narrower fit and then I added gathered bits with elastic thread on either side to try to make it a sort of bunchy 80s look. It’s still way too long. So now I’m trying to decide between cutting off the bottom 10″ or so and making it a top but it’d still have the v and the ties. Or cutting the top 10″ off and making maybe a strappy top or using more elastic thread to make a bunchy bodice. I don’t know. I hate to cut it at all because the fabric is so dang cute. Maybe it’ll just be a nightgown.

I was inspired though by how easy it was to work with a knit fabric. I had some ribbed jersey in my stash so I made up two quick pairs of leggings. They turned out pretty dang cute. I might need to make a knit fabric run before day 5 gets going.

Here’s the top I made from McCalls 6022. I followed the wrong path in the directions and sewed up the yoke sides before inserting the flutter sleeves so she’s sleeveless. It’s still cute but I would have like to have more Heather Ross on there. So Day 3 was a success, Day 4 was a mixed bag. I’ll blog that later this afternoon.