Purple Power

I recently got another special order, this one a baby quilt for a childhood friend's first granddaughter. She asked for a pink flower quilt like I made for my neighbors down the street when they had their second baby girl. I actually have another Spoonflower panel similar to the first I haven't used yet, but I'm almost out of pink stash for the backing and binding!

When I dug out the second of three pink flower panels, which I designed with flowers from my garden, I wondered why I haven't done a purple flower panel. I don't think I'll ever run out of purple stash!!! I would have plenty of backing fabrics and scraps for a purple flower quilt!

So I made a new collage with my purple flowers. My friend's granddaughter still gets a pink flower quilt. But one day I'll be able to make another garden flower quilt to use up some of my purple stash, and I'm excited at the prospect.

I made a small version, too, because I thought the purple would look awesome in a dress. Then I saw an advertisement with flowers swirling from the bottom of the skirt diagonally up into the bodice. Back when I was in high school, I used to design dresses while I was working the graveyard shift for my parents' answering service. One of my favorite designs would feature my own embroidered butterflies swirling from the bottom of the skirt diagonally up into the bodice and completely covering the sleeve. Somewhere in my basement is one of those envelopes of 100 butterfly embroidery designs from the '70s because I always intended to make that dress one day. Somewhere in my basement is a book of 1,000 embroidery designs, with a whole chapter of butterfly designs.

I got this crazy idea to make yet another purple flower fabric panel with flowers from my garden along the bottom of the skirt and going up to the waist. It took longer to create this new collage with the flowers properly placed on the fabric than it took to do the entire first collage. I still don't know if I lined everything up right. But I ordered two yards so I can see how far off I am. And to make a dress, or a skirt if there's not enough fabric to make the dress. Now I just have to wait for the fabric to arrive. And I guess, the time to sew...

I asked AI to create such a dress (because my photoshopped mockup is so amateur; I could have drawn a better rendering!!!) so I could have an awesome image to help illustrate this blog post, and I accidentally forgot to specify I didn't want a video. The accidental result is so entertaining, I have to share it here!

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Finally!

I'm not sure yet if I like it, but my newest dress is finished. I wore it to church on Sunday. No one said anything about it. Typically, I get a lot of compliments.

I can't complain. I have a lot of cool dresses. And this one isn't waiting to be finished anymore.

I think one of the things I don't like about it is having to wear a T-shirt underneath in such hot weather. (91 on Sunday!) Perhaps I'll like it more in winter when I can wear a long-sleeved shirt underneath.

I do love the fabrics. And I love the pieced blocks down the front. So original! Perhaps I should just use it as a scarecrow in the backyard... :)

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Too Many Choices

I looked it up. I cut this dress out on February 9. I thought it had been a month or so earlier. I'm pleased to discover it didn't take quite as long as I'd thought!

Six and a half weeks later, I wore this dress for the first time. I absolutely love it. And I've got a sort of companion dress to go with it, to hopefully prevent this one from becoming too worn out too quickly and to provide a tiny bit of variety for my Sunday school class so they aren't left wondering if I own only one dress. :)

I bought four yards of Kaffe Fassett Collective Blue Tropical Water Lillies back in September of 2023. I didn't even wait for it to go on sale. I loved it so much, I wanted a dress, a whole dress, I could wear to work. (choke, choke, but that's a blog post for another day) And that was my original intention. When I cut out the dress parts (mistakenly believing I could wear the finished dress to church that very day), I cut all six major pieces from my Kaffe yardage. I cut pockets and linings from solid leftovers that sort of harmonize.

Caregiver duties ensued, and no sewing got done that day. Or the next 14-15 days, for that matter. Good thing, too. By the time I finally did sit down to the sewing machine, I'd decided to split the pattern pieces into two different dresses. I'd use one stash solid for the bodice of the first dress, and another stash solid for the skirt for the second.

If I'd had more than one yard of my hyacinth Grunge, I'd have used it for both dresses. The two fabrics go together so beautifully! Perhaps it's good I didn't have enough of any stash solid to cut a matching skirt and a bodice. The two dresses would have been so similar, it might look like I was wearing the same dress every Sunday.

When I finally sat down to sew the last full week of March, I'd decided to cut out one of the leftover flowers to create an appliqué for the Grunge front bodice. I remember thinking at the time the flowers were dahlias. That was meaningful for me because I'd decided I'm not going to invest in dahlias for my garden this year. They are too disappointing at my altitude and in my climate. Having a dahlia dress sort of makes up for the garden sacrifice. Now I find out the "dahlias" are instead water lilies...

I wished I'd had enough hyacinth Grunge for the sleeves. But flowery sleeves will do.

Actual combined sewing time for the first dress was less than three hours, with the appliqué taking up the lion's share of that time. The rest of the dress was so darned fast, I feel ashamed it took me so long to finish it. This pattern is easily a one-sitting project. Unless the seamstress is loaded up with a plethora of duties that take priority...

When I first cut the dress fabric, I modified the bodice from empire to princess cut, adding about four inches in length. I forgot to adjust the skirt and wound up slicing off three inches along the bottom once the dress was assembled.

When I first decided to make two dresses instead of one, I wanted them to be different enough that they didn't look like twins. Ultimately, I didn't have enough of any of my Grunge stash for a skirt, much less sleeves, and I didn't want to do floral sleeves on both dresses. I had plenty of denim-look fabrics, and plenty of yardage to boot. I decided to go sleeveless on the second dress.

While cutting out the skirt for the second dress, I suddenly became bored with way too much solid. I wondered what the dress might look like if I stuck a vertical stripe in the front of the skirt...

And then I got REALLY crazy. What if I did some quilt blocks in a stripe down the front of the skirt using leftovers of both fabrics... If I don't like the stripe, I can always make a quilt...

So maybe this second dress will get finished in the next two months, or maybe a bunch of quilt blocks will be crafted... Or both... :)

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A Pending New Me

I cut this dress out more than two months ago. Because one of the students in my Sunday school class asked why I always wear the same dress. Because I do. Because very few of my dresses fit anymore. Because Lizard and I haven't been outdoors as much as we dream and want to be. And because chocolate is a comfort food...

I'm so sad I couldn't sit down for the hour and a half it would have taken to make this dress in one sitting. Mostly because I don't want to wake Lizard when he finally falls asleep, which usually happens during the day. And because sometimes I'm out like a light within seconds after he finally begins snoozing.

I'm typing this Wednesday night while waiting for the 10 p.m. alarm signaling Lizard's final meds of the evening. He's been sleeping much of the afternoon because we had a dental checkup first thing Wednesday morning. I got some work done in the yard Wednesday afternoon while he slept, but we've both been exhausted all day. I can't believe I'm doing this, but I'm going to bed instead of spending the next hour at the sewing machine to attach the skirt. There's probably half an hour's work left on the dress. I could have been wearing this dress on Thursday!!!

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Jelly Rolling

How did it get to be Thursday again so quick?!? The only thing I have to show for myself the past couple of weeks is a few more rows of the dress I hope to wear to church one day. I'm doing my best; days just don't seem long enough!

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Legends of Calypso

Confession: I was totally seduced by the blue Color Calypso fabric line (that isn't even available anymore). I don't think I even waited for a sale to snag my fat quarter bundle. I loved the colors and the individual designs from the very first time I saw them in a magazine ad. I didn't unpackage my June 2018 bundle until late 2022. I still am not sure what I should do with it, yet I love to look at the gorgeous hues when I need creative inspiration.

I adored the "color-kissed" flower print so much, I decided I need a dress made of it. I bought four yards. Again, I didn't wait for a sale. But I also still haven't gotten around to selecting a pattern for the fabric. (I have so many blue floral fabrics for which I haven't yet chosen dress patterns!) I can't decide if I want this particular dress to be a jumper I can wear in all seasons or a summer-sleeved frock that will get put away in winter.

I didn't expect to see any of the collection go on sale ever, but more than one year after I bought that initial bundle, a handful of the jelly roll strip packages landed in a popular online sale bin. I wasted no time in adding one to my collection.

I knew from experience one package of 40 or 42 jelly roll strips is not quite enough strips to make the entire skirt for a dress I designed with my own Spoonflower fabric designs back in 2014. (Man, I can't believe it's been that long ago now!!!) I knew must supplement. When I buy a set of jelly roll strips I intend to fashion into a dress, I typically buy a yard of my favorite fabric in the collection or in a coordinating solid to add half a dozen or so more strips to the skirt and to create a dress bodice. Pockets typically are made from whatever I have in my scrap bin that goes along with the dress fabric as close as possible. After all, my deep side pockets don't show.

I modified my strip skirt design just a bit with blue floral fabric leftovers from other projects and cut from worn-out dresses I made about as far back as high school.

The Color Calypso fabric line was so dated (most fabric collections - except for Moda Grunge and various solids - don't tend to be on the shelves longer than a few months), I knew there wouldn't be much yardage selection anywhere to add to my dress, so I thought a coordinating solid might be a nice addition. I used an online store's color matcher tool and bought a couple of yards of the recommended blue.

I wasn't impressed with the solid shade when it arrived. In 2021, I used the solid in my Painterly Charms quilt, then used the leftovers in a table topper for my mom for Mother's Day.

I haven't had enough time to make anything for me for so long, I'd set aside all my planned dress projects. I hoped a better Color Calypso coordinating solid option might materialize one day. At the end of 2019, I needed a tiny bit more of one specific fabric to finish an unrelated quilt. I got online to find the fabric, and there in the daily highlights was what I considered the perfect match for the Color Calypso dress! Moda Grunge, of course.

When this new fabric arrived, I couldn't wait to sit down to my sewing machine! I could not wait to wear this new dress! I cut the strips I needed several months later, and the following year or so, I cut out the bodice, lining and pockets. The unfinished project has been on my dining room table-turned sewing table since March of 2020. I never touched it again until now!!!

It likely will take a while to finish the piecing, and then I'd like to topstitch each seam with row of fancy embroidery. I went through my thread stash and don't have anything but a blue solid for the topstitching, but I guess I have a while before I have to make that decision. Each skirt panel will be at least 24 strips wide, and I'm only 9 strips into the first of two panels. Sadly, this isn't a dress I'll be wearing to church this coming weekend. How I wish I could finish it that fast!

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Mending without Spending

I need to cheer three times because I finished three projects during the three-day weekend! All three are from my mending pile instead of my WIP list, but I'm making progress, slow but steady, in finishing things that have needed to be done, some for a decade or more.

First up was a very short stack of various batik layer cake leftovers I thought could make a good quilt or quilt back in a bind. This stack has been on my sewing table (which sometimes doubles as a dining room table, ha ha) for at least a couple of years. My mending pile has sojourned right next to these layer cake remnants, so I've always considered the blocks part of the mending pile. The scrappy layer cake has grown a bit in the last two years until it finally contained 12 blocks, which is my own definition of perfect for a kid quilt layout.

Somewhere along the line, I bought a half-price jelly roll, thinking that would make perfect sashing for this leftovers project. When I finally sat down to work out a layout, I found I wasn't very happy with two of the 10-inch squares, and I found out why the jelly roll was on sale. I didn't like it too much at all.

I ended up cutting out three more 10-inch blocks from my batik stash, then incorporating leftover batik strips I cut myself back when I was designing batik jelly roll quilts for my grands. I also threw in a few blocks from a sale charm pack I picked up who knows how long ago. I LOVED the charm pack, but there were only 24 blocks, so not really enough to make a quilt. Using the squares in this project helped me feel like at least one sale precut I bought was worth the price!

I'm thinking this might be an excellent quilt backing. It could be a quilt front, too, but I promised I would not create any new quilts until I finish a few more WIPs. I can even make this flimsy bigger by adding more of my home-cut batik strip leftovers around the edges if I need to, perhaps even creating a fancy border.

Next up is the dress I intended to wear to my niece Lyndsie's wedding. Back in 2016!!! Lyndsie actually gave birth to her second son last week, and I have a pretty nice little stash of finished kid quilts now, so I was able to get one off in the mail the day after my new grand nephew arrived instead of spending the three-day weekend making another baby quilt.

I bought this border-edged rayon batik even further back than Lyndsie's wedding, perhaps in 2010, at the now-defunct Denver National Quilt Festival. Oh, how I fell in love with the fabric!!! Total impulse purchase! I bought three yards, because it was wide, thinking that would be enough for a dress. I finally began the dress perhaps a month prior to Lyndsie's wedding... I typically can finish most dresses in one day. But no, not this one... I did not have enough fabric for both the bodice top and back.

I can't remember how long it took me to find a nearly matching rayon batik so long after I bought that original fabric. I do remember I didn't find it in time for the wedding. So I had to wear something else on that special day.

What I bought doesn't truly match, so I ended up cutting both bodice parts from the additional fabric (and sending the original bodice piece to the scrap stash), hoping the dress wouldn't look too bad with the top of the dress made from a different fabric than the bottom.

I can't remember why I didn't put the top and bottom together when I finished cutting them out, but it's possible the timing coincided with 15 quilts for my new grandkids for Christmas! A very worthy distraction! Oh, and in looking up that significant event, I discovered that's also the time period when my 34-year-old beloved Viking Husqvarna finally gave up the ghost. I distinctly remember that unfortunate event putting all kinds of delays into all quilting, sewing and mending projects. The dress got buried by one more mending project after another, until I couldn't even see what was on the bottom of the stack and until I bought a new, very inexpensive sewing machine, a Brother Project Runway (approximately three years ago). Last weekend I began deconstructing the mending pile to discover why it had grown so tall and what secrets it held.

I thought perhaps I may have procrastinated finishing the dress because facings are not my favorite thing to do, particularly when I blind-stitch tack them down by hand. I don't remember even putting the top of this dress together, but, lo and behold, I did. I also don't remember crocheting (and installing) the loop I planned to use for the back button, which I no longer have (at least in a location I might think to look). Thankfully, my button stash included a suitable button that fit the crocheted loop, and half an hour later, my dress was done!

Last but not least, the mending pile included two pairs of bike shorts. One needs a new chamois. Cheaper than buying a new pair of cycling shorts. But doing a project like that by hand (which is how I began... 15 years ago!!!), obviously convinced me I'd be better off buying a new pair of spandex shorts. The second pair of bike shorts in the stack needed the chamois tacked to the shorts because each washing resulted in serious slippage and very uncomfortable rides. I tried my hand at this pair using my sewing machine and learned why the first pair of shorts was being done by hand. Those chamois pads are not the easiest things to sew, by hand OR by machine!!! Nevertheless, my stash of cycling shorts now is one pair richer without a single dime being spent.

Linking up with Alycia Quilts.

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