Fourth of July dress, done nauti-cool.

I must say, I am inspired.  Mostly because I tried something I haven't done before, and--bonus!--it turned out much better than I had anticipated. 

You see, I saw my neighbor putting up some festive red, white and blue banners on her front porch today in honor of the fast-approaching 4th of July.  It fueled an already present itch to stitch up a little number for Sabrina to wear while she watches fireworks.  Well, let's be clear.  She won't actually be watching fireworks.  She is far too frightened of loud noises for that, but she still has to wear clothes to the party leading up to said activity, right?

So I had some faux madras type fabric that had been taking up space on my rolly-rack for about six months.  It's not that I didn't like it; it just hadn't told me what it wanted to be yet--until Independence Day poked its little noggin around the corner.

I got to work on the circle skirt last night.  That took all  of about two minutes to make.  Tops.  If you want to know how to do this in a super easy way, email me at info@almodish.com and I'll fill you in on the secret.

The cool thing about a true circle skirt is that you can check the whole way around it, and you won't find a single seam.

Anyhow, I needed navy and white striped fabric for the bodice.  Ha!  Well that was no small task.  As I've mentioned before, I usually buy my fabrics online, but in a pinch (as in, I want it NOW) I do head down the road to the local crafty chain store every now and again.  My penchant to buy online was reaffirmed when I realized they didn't have navy and white striped fabric!?!? That's like Basics 101, right?  Not to be deterred, I decided to make my navy and white striped fabric.  It took about 30x's as long as it would have to just buy the fabric, but I must say that I think the raw-edged stripes produced a much cooler effect.  Let me know what you think.

I then added the "rope" bow to complete the nautical feel, but something was missing.....in comes the inspiration.  I haven't ever put any type of image on my stuff before.  I actually wanted to applique something on there, but nothing seemed quite right.  So I found this vintage pic that seemed perfect for the Fourth, and óuila!  Here we are.  The perfect topper to my cake.  In fact, I'm so happy with it that I might have to explore this type of design a bit more :) .....

Transfer paper was my friend here.

Happy 4th of July!  We love and thank our soldiers who fight to keep us free!

Since taking this pic, I changed out the wooden buttons for some metal shiny gold ones that have little anchors on them.

Today's happiness:  Imperfection.  Like the exposed raw edges of the fabric, sometimes when things are just a little "off" they turn out right on.  Have a great week!  Wonky raw edges and all.

The Afterthought Dress

Wait, no, not like that.  Not in a bad way.  Not like I didn't care.  But there I was.  Three hours 'til spring photoshoot "go time," and I get a wild hair that all of my models needed to have custom made monogrammed dresses as thank you gifts.

My sewing mentor, Frances, was there watching my kids that day so I could sew up some loose ends for the photo shoot.  No pun intended.  And I ask her, "Frances, do you think I would be nuts to try to sew all of the girls (Four of them, in case you were wondering) dresses before the shoot tonight?"  And she just looks at me with those Knowing Frances eyes, as if to say, "Heck yes, you're loony toons.  But I know you're gonna do it anyway."  And so I forged ahead.  After all, they were just four simple pillowcase dresses.  I get all the way finished with the fourth one and looked at the clock.  Shucks!  It's time to go and the embroidery still hasn't been stitched on.

Given that these dresses were afterthoughts, I didn't have enough trim to make them all the same.  Some have these white poms on the bottom and others have white eyelet lace.  But they'll never know, right?

Sigh.  The crazy things we put ourselves through!  I bet you do it too.  Maybe you make miniature fondant cat cupcakes for your kid's entire preschool class like my friend, Brandi.  Or maybe you're always volunteering to babysit your neighbor's kids for free like my friend that shall go unnamed :)

So here's to us, my girlfriends!  Even you, the one I haven't met yet.  At least something good is coming from our stress.  And if you're really good, no one will even know it's an afterthought :)

Today's happiness:  Memorial Day.  For some, it's a reason to kick back and relax.  For others, it's a more somber day spent remembering someone that's no longer here.  But we are still here.  Let's spend the rest of our day doing something that makes others happy that we're alive!