First House Update

Technically I haven't made anything on the house yet.  However, the foundation is in and I am RIDICULOUSLY excited about it.  How cool is it to see your house go from this:

to this:

?

I can tell you (now that I've experienced it) that it is way cool!  All of a sudden it feels so real.  Ours is one of two houses in the group that has the foundation in.  Another house has the footings poured and most of the others will have their work done this next week.  We hope to start framing work in about three weeks.  Yeehaw!  I guess I'd better practice saying that now that we'll be "rural" residents. ;)

What I've Been Up To

I've been off the sewing grid for a while and have not blogged here.  It's not that I haven't been busy since the last post, I've just been busy with different things.  First off, I spent quite of bit of time...creatively.  Creating a new life, to be more exact.

Isn't she cute?

After the last wedding dress and before the baby was born I was doing contract work with Shabby Apple.  They make really cute dresses.  I did sewing and pattern work on one of the dresses.  The link for their bridesmaid line is here.  That kept me pretty busy, particularly during wedding season.  I also made a few bridesmaid and wedding dresses for another company.  When I get those pictures I will post them and their descriptions.

Since then I haven't done much sewing, just a few alterations here and there.  It gets a bit tricky with a toddler and a baby.  I'm hoping to start up again soon, but I'm not going to push it.  The one big project I did tackle was a blessing dress for the baby.

I had the fabric stored for over six years before using it.  The fabric is all leftovers from my wedding dress.  The satin on my daughter's dress is the same as the main body of my dress.  The jacket and bonnet are the lace from my bodice.  The collar on the baby dress is the embroidered satin from the cut away part of the gown's skirt.  There is also trim lace at the baby's waist that was around the hem and opening of my skirt.  My mother did the beading on the trim lace, just as she did when I got married.  The finishing touch was the pair of booties I crocheted.

The only other sewing project I've done from scratch since the baby was a sheep costume for baby's first Halloween.  My mom made my older daughter's Little Bo Peep costume.  They were adorable.  They just didn't take any pictures together.

Now that the baby is getting a little older I would love to start sewing more fun things for the girls to match.  I'm thinking zebra print pettiskirts with a bright trim.

Heidi

This is the beautiful and fabulous Heidi.  She was really a joy to work with and so easy-going.  That's not an easy trick to master when you're prepping for your wedding.  Heidi came to me with ideas for what she wanted in her wedding dress.  She has a very elegant, simple, and clean style.  After a few revisions we ended up with the dress that had the elements she wanted, as well as a fun blue sash to add to her beauty.

What a lovely bride!

Adding Straps

Silly me for not taking a before picture of this dress, but I do have the after. This particular dress started off strapless and the bride requested straps. After cutting fabric off the bottom to shorten the hem I used the excess fabric to create the straps. I thought the effect was great and that the pleated straps looked like they could have been original to the dress. (click on the picture to see it in better detail)

Blue Babies

This was just a quick project of matching dresses for my daughter and niece to take pictures in. The girls only cooperated for one shot, but at least we got the one. I love their matching blue eyes and their sweet little faces.

Change the Dress

Th general alterations I do on most wedding gowns are simple things like the hem that aren't really noticeable in a picture. This gown required work that shows very clearly. The bride loved the dress, but not all the fabric on the skirt. I made it into one layer over the top and then hemmed both layers. The other change was in the bottom of the bodice. The dress originally ended in a V-point in front and the bride wanted it more round. The "after" picture of the dress looks like it has a lot more shine to the skirt, but the real difference is just in the use of natural light in the "before" picture and a camera flash in the "after" picture.

Before

After

Halloween

These are a couple of costumes I did for Halloween of (I think) 2007.  My husband and I were Aragorn and Arwen from Lord of the Rings.  I didn't make the boot covers, but I did cut the fabric strips for my husband to wrap his boots. :)  The look I was going for in the picture was melancholy, but it comes across as irritated.

For Halloween this year we didn't dress up (life was pretty hectic), but I couldn't let my baby skip out on the festivities.  Here she is as Cinderella.

She makes a cute princess.