I spend too much time on Facebook

And it makes me forget to come update my blog! I've had a not-so-stitchy couple of weeks. I had 4 dresses I wanted to make before summer started. Guess what - summer started, and they're not done. Oh, sure the khaki dress is assembled, but it's not the way I want it. I didn't realize when I purchased the pattern that it was a trapeze-style dress. Not the most flattering on me. So my mom and I have been repinning so that I can alter it to be more of a classic shirt-dress.

Here's what I HAVE accomplished:

One of Hallie's dresses - this is the Ariel print she chose, with "seashell" buttons. She wore it proudly to church on Sunday, and unless you look closely, you can't tell it was home-made by a novice sewer. I did not cut the pattern pieces for this, I TRACED them (you may all pat me on the back for my smartness and frugality) - keep reading to find out why.

A "Ni-Hao Kai-Lan" shirt for Katie's birthday. Unless you have a 3-5 year old, you will not know who Kai-Lan is. She's like a Mandarin Dora. Katie's been asking for months to "buy" her own Kai-Lan shirt, and I havent' seen them anywhere. The one I found on eBay that wasn't exorbitantly priced was too small. But I did find iron-on transfers! Yay! In my to-be-used-someday fabric stash I found an old white tablecloth. I reused the dress pattern (size 4, of course) for this shirt. I simply measured down 2" from the hip line on the pattern to mark my cutting line for the shirt. The sleeves came from my stash of quarter flats - my first attempt at sleeves. If you care to look closely, you'll see the neck-line is stitched with yellow thread, and the hem-line with orange.

The shirt took me 6 hours over 2 days to complete. I think 2 days to complete a sewing project is a record for me. I'm taking a break from the sewing machine today, doing laundry, and cleaning the kitchen. And spending quality time with my computer. :)