Last post of the old year!

Yes, I hear the “tap, tap, tapping” at my window.  “Post already would you” it is saying!

The mound of unfinished projects is growing mountainous here- a highwaisted skirt, a cape, a really cute tee and so on and so on!  Meanwhile I do silly things like, after finding out that my niece received an American Doll for Christmas, scour the internet looking for cute patterns, put 150 dollars worth of said pattern books in my shopping cart, then come to grips with reality and purchase only one book.  (just a second, I need to check if that last sentence is a contender for the longest runon blog sentence in recent history…..nope – but close, I’ll bet!!)

I have been hard at work on those bridesmaid dresses.  I took advantage of having Miss Leah and Miss Lauren close for a couple of weeks, and got their bodices almost done.  Let me tell you  – there were a lot of headscratching moments trying to meld wants and wishes with reality.  Thank goodness our priest had a long, boring, (sorry Fr Dominic, but let’s face it- you were meant to be a lecturer, not a parish priest attempting to instill just a titch of Catholic doctrine into our tiny brains for an hour on Sunday mornings) Now where was I? O Oh yes, a longgg, slightly boring sermon on a Sunday morning is just the place to set your chin on your guitar and ponder down and dirty ruching, seaming, and lining!

After spending hours and hours and days and weeks on Kate wedding dress ruching- which was worth every nanosecond- I knew that I would have to try something different for the ruching on theses dresses.  I mean they are only bridesmaid dresses for goodness sake!  Let’s just say that the methods included, bias, pins,pinspins, cardboard, the ironing board and iron, and lightweight fusible interfacing.  Are you intrigued?  The results are great- just what the mother of the bride was hoping! Of course, I was on such a roll that there are not many photo’s and the camera has dead batteries…

From the skin side out, the layers are- lining, cotton flannel with boning channels, interfaced lining fabric for under the ruching, and the fashion fabric, ruched and “stayed” with lightweight fusible interfacing.  And, in Laurens case, a layer of georgette under the ruched piece to zap up the colour(as that ruching is netting) 
When I bought the heavy interfacing to stabilize the bodice with- I want something that will quite basically stand up by itself in the end- I ended up getting what is fusible buckram.  The saleslady thought I was crazy to spend that much money on interfacing, but it really worked well!

 Uncle.  enough  posting for one day!

Today’s Postscript…

My mom and dad made 18 – Count ‘em- EIGHTEEN! of the cutest Santa’s for their children and grandchildren this year! And here are our “FiveBlondes”  all together for the first time in 8 months! 

The FiveBlondes