Upcycled dress

Part of the reason I haven't made as many dresses lately is because I haven't needed to. Our neighbors frequently clean our their closets and grace us with a lot of clothes for the girls. The dress in this picture was made from one of the summer dresses given to us. In it's former life it was a big girl dress that was too wide up top and not long enough on the bottom. However, the fabric and print were wonderful and I had just the right yarn colors to match. 

In case you're wondering, this is not the mystery knitting project I posted a few days ago. But they will go together.

Dress of the running child

My running toddler...its not the best picture of the dress, and I have no idea how the color turned out this 1970's yellow shade, but I love these pics of the newest dress none-the-less.

My hands feel old. There's more dressed in my mind than the hands can finish.

Gowns?

I started a cap sleeve Baptismal gown top before my little man was born. After three girls I was sort of geared towards making frilly type gowns. After the baby was born, I decided the cap sleeves were just too girly for him. And I started making another top with straight short sleeves. No frills.

So now I have two gowns. Initially, I thought of selling the extra gown. But now I'm thinking of saving it to give to my middle daughter. She wore the family heirloom gown when she was baptized, and so doesn't have a gown of her own to use for her children. Since there are quite a few cousins who are/ have used that gown, it's doubtful she'll inherit it.

My oldest son also wore the family gown...I'll let any future daughter-in-law figure that out. Women like to get to pick out their baby clothes and gear...usually.

Coming along...

Yeah, I got a dress done today! But that trip to the post office, let me tell ya! It nearly killed me. It's soooo hot outside! And then they wouldn't let me used the priority tape on my priority package!

Normally, I box it all up before I leave the house, but I didn't have a label, and I wrote the address on the a card that I intended to seal up in the box...and I suppose the moral of the story is, make my own label and just seal up the box before I leave the house. The post office label isn't worth the roll of tape they'll charge me when I get there...and I sure as heck wasn't going to go home for tape. Did I mention the kids weren't behaving very well?

So I don't feel ready to re-open my store to custom orders yet. But I suppose if folks pay via pay pal, and I can click and ship, and never have to step foot in the post office again, that's fine by me.

While I was away...

I came up with a special headband for this turquoise dress I'm making for someone who did me a hugh favor. This is the sort of thing you'll get if you say...safe my life. ;) While this knit in the round dress was an interesting experiment, I'm not sure I'm ready to switch over my methods. The sock cast off didn't work out as smoothly as I would have liked, and while it's fine for this dress, I think my old method is probably better. It just depends on what I'm going for.

And I finally procured some ABU (Air force Battle Uniform) fabric. So this first dress will be for my niece, whose daddy is in the Air force.

Though, I've been sort of sick so these dresses might take a while longer before they're totally complete.

Not for Sale

....but I wanted to show you what I've been working on over the last couple weeks. I've been working on improving my dress pictures so my customers could get more clear, dress focused images.

A line Lace Band

Another experiment here. I added a band of Ol Shel lace to the bodice. The lace has to be hand stitched in place after the dress is complete. I need to work on the gauge a bit more so that I can get the correct length on the first casting, as it did not turn out the same length when I based my casting count on the bodice stitch count. It's not quite double, more like 1 and 3/4th. So, theoretically, if I multiply the bodice stitch count by 1.75 to calculate my lace band casting figure. There, problem solved. Next time I'll know better.

Periwinkle Paisley

This is the very last of my periwinkle paisley fabric. So this dress is a 3T Felicity V-neck with cap sleeves.

The wind is absolutely blustery today, so pictures of the dress on my closet door will just have to suffice, unless you want to see what this dress looks like if flying as a kite, which is no doubt would do if I tried to hang it on the clothes line. LOL.

ACU Dress

I've resisted making this dress for a while. But the overwhelming popularity of camouflage clothing for children won out. So I decided to go as authentic as possible. My dreams of having a full range of camouflage dresses to match each service branch are far from met, but for now the Army Camouflage dress is now a reality.

The first group of these dresses will be done in 100% twill ACU fabric. I hope to acquire some 50% cotton/ 50% nylon ACU fabric later. However, that won't be for a while.

If anyone knows of a source for authentic fabrics for the Air Force and Marines, let me know. And I really don't know what pattern the Navy uses, but I've never had anyone express interest in a Navy camouflage dress.