The Update

In case you were wondering how the sewing is going, I am happy to report that I can sew a skate dress now without garment construction instructions :-). Yep, I have the steps permanently etched into memory now, which is a good thing, it's a great time saver. I have also gotten the whole routine down to a nice science from laying out the pattern pieces to cutting them, to pinning them together, to serging the seams, to putting in the zipper in less than half an hour (it has to be hand basted in first), to final garment construction. On day one, I made her competition figures dress. It's really cute if I do say so myself :-D. The main dress is a lovely shade of blue. It has a white underskirt, layered over with the blue top skirt. The bodice is pieced in blue, white, and silver, on front and back. Both mom and skater are very happy with the final result. Just need to add swarovski crystals now for some bling.

Day two did not yield any shouts of happy glee. It was a trial run dress, just to see if would work for transferring over to the black velvet. Although, the dress fit my skater perfectly, it just isn't the right style for her figure. When she tried on said dress, we both looked at each other like, "uh huh, scratch that- hate this one!" I tried a kick pleat skirt for the trial run dress. Thankfully I didn't serge the seams between the panty and the bodice so it will be an easy matter to take that one apart and replace the skirt that I used. So, all is not lost.

Day three. I spent half the day looking over the patterns to see which ones would work best for the required 'black velvet' dress I have to make for my skater, making various mental alterations to the pattern pieces. It needs to fall into a particular guideline of sorts. Day two did nothing to get us closer to our goal. Finally, I settled on a plan that may work for our goal, but I was out of fabric and we were hungry, so we loaded up the van with skates and skate related other stuff, and headed to our new favorite eating place- Jimmy Johns (thanks to another skater mom). After lunch we went to get some swarovski crystals (already bought the heat set tool last week), and then to get more fabric. We ended the day with a two and a half hour skate class, picked up pizza on the way home, and watched a movie.

I am on day four today. I have my pattern pieces cut out and have half of them pinned together. I am off to sew the new dress together- say a little prayer for us that this one works out for transferring to the black velvet.

Blessings!
Barb
PS- I did sneak in a card yesterday before I poured over pattern pieces. I just couldn't take the lack of paper anymore ;-). Have a great day!!