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

Simplicity 4253, 2nd version, in cotton, fully lined and skirt lining is white broadcloth, trimmed with lace to be a petticoat. Lacey floral trim is hand-applied at the waistline. She is sitting with child #3. A photo of the back of my daughter's Easter Dress from S4253. This was from the church egg hunt this morning. I am so ready to move on to something else. I am going back to trying to find a TNT shirt pattern, a good dress for first communion for me and some quilting and other small things to get a feeling of satisfaction. First though, tax deadline in 3 days, so you may not hear much from me.

I didn't post yesterday as I was busy! Baby's dress is finished with the exception of a bow in the back. Oldest's lacks the finishing of the zipper and that area of lining hand tacked down plus a bow or other suitable ornamentation in back. Do not use the McCall 5742, the bodice looks nothing like the photo in the length, it comes up higher than the photo. As I mentioned before, the bodice is actually a sqaure yoke, weird sleeve caps and a lower bodice. I blended the yoke and bodice into one and only eliminated seam allowances. Overlaying the original and my copies they are the same length and shape as finished. They musta lengthened it for the model, but my oldest usually fit well in an 8. The back length is approximate to the stated number on the envelope, so it's not that it's too short. Just misrepresented in the photo. The taffeta really makes the skirt stand out, too, so be ready for that. Oh well, she loves it and said it's a princess dress. ...

Finished this last night for my daughter. She loved it and she usually does not wear dresses. Post will be short, my parents are on their way over. I also have a photo of a refashioning for Spidey costume, put together in a few minutes. Took a thrift store warmup set, used the pants to make a patch to cover the existing motif, added another thrift store pant that fit, cut a spidey applique and human spider applique from a baby jacket and sewed it on. One happy 4 year old!

We got new mattresses this week and they are tall. I bought new sheets, too big (deep), so Mike went to return them and while there, to buy the buttons I forgot for the baby's dress, 3/8" shank buttons in white. Imagine explaining this to my husband, who has no knowledge of sewing, or wants to. I wrote it down, and he brought me the right ones, the only ones they had, so I am impressed. By the way, the new mattresses are great, but now our bed is so high, I have to climb up using the side rail (yes, I am short!). My daughter said I need a bench. Oh, what a sense of humor they have!

Well, still working on baby's bandanna dress' hem, so I should be done today. I am also finishing a quickie pieced blankie for my new nephew - I strip pieced it yesterday and backed it with white flannel, machine-quilted it and it needs binding. I swear, I have sewing ADHD. I can't keep focused. No sleep this week is probably it - baby has been sick again with a cold/allergies and not sleeping until I took her in Thursday to the doctor and she got antihistimine/decongestant from the pharmacy. Mike came in late last night and I worked on the blanket until then. I calculated about 3 hours on it. I used a jelly roll from "Recess" from Moda. At 24"x24", I have enough for 2 more blankies. These are about the size of the receiving blankets used to cover them in a carseat or carrying the baby from car to keep the air off them. By not using batting, only flannel, they are flexible and lightweight. Also, need a suggestion. I am removing the tie and leav...

I updated the template, well, because I was bored with the dots. Also, all of the white was bothering my eyes. Today was not a real sewing day, we were gone "fundraising" for the church auction, so I need to get busy tomorrow. Check out Fabric.com's clearance for a sale, if you didn't get an email. They had quite a bit in there. I have a multitude of items to finish (and start), so I am going to do as much as I can on the machine tomorrow & have handwork for the weekend with the kids home from school. I have quilt spokes for the DP blocks and other vintage blocks I was previewing what to do with on the coffee table, so I need to get those moved tomorrow. My new cutting table has a train set, or a raw, to be landscaped and finished for the auction. My husband made an HO gauge for the kiddos for Christmas and it was cool, so he has the board on the table so he can work on it in air conditioning (last winter was out in the garage). Here are some of the photo...