3 starts, 4 finishes, and a WIP

I got a lot of sewing in this week.

I started,

and finished, a dress for me yesterday.

Actually, that's not entirely true; I cut out the lining Saturday.

I originally wasn't going to treat the lining as a lining;

I was going to just layer the fabrics, and treat them as one

so I laid the outer fabric face down on the table, with the lining pieces on top and cut it out that way.

Without moving the pieces, I used my basting glue around the edges,

but then thought that might not be the best idea, and pulled them apart.

Which sounds easier than it was.

Everything went together pretty quickly after that.
I sewed the lining and the dress seperately, then used this tutorial for attaching the lining ~ it worked beautifully.

Being a knit pull-over, the dress is super comfy;

I just hope I don't feel like an overstuffed chair, wearing a floral print.... 

~

Tyler was gone for the evening, and the kids were swimming, so as soon as I finished my dress,

I pulled out the ruffle fabric I got on sale for $5 a yard.

I grabbed a tank top that the girls share, measured from Lily's underarm to knee

and got to work.

I had some superlightweight, fairly low quality white cotton jersey,

so I used that as the lining.

I folded it in eighths, 

and laid the tank top, folded in half, on top 

and cut out all 4 pieces (2 fronts, 2 backs - cut on the fold) at once.

Then I took 2 inches off of Lexi's length (should have taken off more, I see....)

and, again, used the lining pieces as the 'pattern' to cut the dress pieces.

I had to do more pinning than I prefer, to keep all those ruffles lined up,

but I ended up deciding I don't hate pinning as much as I thought I did.

I understitched Lily's - looks like I need to go back and do Lexi's, too

I finished most of Lily's dress last night, and sewed most of Lex's up this morning.

I saved the handsewing for nap-time.

~

I was on a roll, 

so I decided I'd go ahead and finish my coral and aqua shirt, too.

I just picked a stitch on my machine that looked like it'd have some 'give' to it that went with my daisies.

It only took about 1/2 hour, since I already had my binding strips cut and ironed.

The white and red shirt?

It's still a work in progress.

The beading on the front and back is done,

and the side seams are sewn, but not felled.

I got a little bummed when I went back to the Alabama Chanin post, to find out what to do next

and discovered that they had spaces in between their beads,

and I, did not.

grrr.

I set it aside for several days, but I'm ready to get back to it now.

~

Not a ton of reading has been happening;

I'm still picking up Captivating every now and then and I just started reading through A Pattern Language,

a book that my friend, Susan - who sadly, no longer blogs -  mentioned so many times,

I knew I had to check it out.

Our library doesn't have it, and at almost $40, I didn't want to buy it without a look-see.

I actually remembered to take all the info with me to the library three weeks ago, 

so I could request it via inter-library loan and it finally came in Tuesday.

I'm anxious to get to the part about houses - I'm still in towns, right now....

~

Once again, I'm joining Elizabeth's

Gotta run...