Adventures in Vintage Resales... fka adventures in baby-sewing

I haven't sewn a stitch since Dec 23, after completing the dresses. After 6 weeks of intense craft show sewing and 3 dresses, I am tired and need to reorganize the sewing room and the house. So, hopefully, I will photograph some of the projects and share them here soon. Otherwise, I am planning and plotting, reorganizing, purging and trying not to lose the shreds of sanity with 4 kids home from school.

Christmas dresses for the girls - the oldest's is a blend of 2 McCalls patterns and the youngest's from an OOP McCalls that is 60's style A line with two bows at the end of the shoulder pleats. I used black velvet and red shantung texture backed satin.

See the picture at the side? I am actually entering a sew along - we'll see how we do. Miss Muslin at http://missmuslin.blogspot.com is hosting it with the minimal rules and details.

A photo of my husband, Mike and myself in the finished vintage 1950 dress. I hate digital photos, I am convinced I did not look so "wide" at home in the mirror. That's why I rarely put a photo of myself, I use the dressform instead. The dress was comfortable and fit fine, no complaints, some compliments from our friends and my husband.

Photos of my almost complete Christmas dress from S3237 from 1950, can be seen in the Vintage Pattern wikipedia http://vintagepatterns.wikia.com/wiki/Simplicity_3237 since my copy's envelope is in awful shape. It's modeled after the blue one, but I chose a drapey woven, bought a few years ago, it may be rayon blend, has slight stretch, with superimposed "flocked" abstract flowers. You can see where I chose to embellish the central bodice with gunmetal shade bugle and seed beads, following the flower lines. I bought a stretch elastic belt in black, the only one I could find, so hopefully it works. I have some high pumps with a mary jane strap, so hopefully it will all work. I lined the bodice with the anti-cling poly stuff from Hancocks, handsewing the two together at the waist seam. I had to take a stab at easing it in at the gathers since I opted not to do running stitches on it, thought it might be too thin to do it. All I lack is the zipper and hem.

I have been sewing alot lately. I had booths in two craft shows, table runners, crayon rolls, other items. Did pretty well, too, for church related shows. I am now finishing my holiday dress from a vintage Simplicity and attempting to make a little wrap from a McCalls pattern with the free HP wrap on Fabric.com as its inspiration for the opening/drape. Not really sure about it at this point. We have a K of C dinner this weekend so I got to finish tomorrow. Next up, holiday dresses for the girls. The baby is easy, just a straight size 2 overall, but she is thin and long waisted. Her height is 36", she has a B to W of 10" and needs a 15" skirt to fall under the knees. In comparison, the oldest at 9 is 54" tall, needs a B to W of 13", I think (the paper I wrote on is in the kitchen). So I will post more later - we're going Christmas shopping this morning while the kids are in school :)