Preview of final two episodes of "Easter Sewing Saga"

Dress for Jenna Ruth

This is the basic pattern I'm using for Jenna.  She's six and in the first grade.  She's a real girly girl who likes to look beautiful!!

I'm going to smock the bodice.  I may make a separate bodice like the pattern shows, or I may make it  more like the dress in the Sew Beautiful Magazine picture that I posted earlier in February titled,  "Decision, Decisions, Decisions!" ( I tried to link to my earlier post, but it didn't work.  I'll have to figure out how to do that.)  (The picture on the bottom row on the left.)  That dress is a bishop style.  Jenna's won't be, but you get the idea. 


To continue the look of that dress, I'm using the edge of a tablecloth that I had in my antique stash.  The border is scalloped like the dress in the photo.  I'm doing a hand embroidered flower in each scallop.



These are just close up views of the embroidery.  I still have more to do.  This is so much fun.  I just make up what I'm doing as I go.  The flower or the left is Shadow Embroidery.  On the right the flowers are done with a Bullion Stitch and French Knots.

These two are done with a Satin Stitch, Outline Stitch, and French Knots, again.

Here's more Bullion Stitching, Outline Stitch, Straight Stitch,  and of  course, French Knots.  I plan to attach this scalloped border to the hem of Jenna's dress using lace insertion between the border and the dress fabric.   I will scallop the top of the border to match the bottom, I hope.  I'm not sure about the sleeves, but I do have the corners of the tablecloth edge.  They are bigger scallops and might make really pretty ruffled sleeves if I also embroider on them.  Or, I may make regular puffed sleeves from the dress fabric.  We'll see.

Now, for Kellen Marie  

She is 8 years old, but will be nine in May!  She likes Math, Science, and horses.  She isn't as girly as Jenna, but she still likes to dress up and look pretty.

This is the basic pattern for her.  I wove ribbon of two shades of lavender for her bodice.  Remember weaving paper in elementary school?  This is the same idea.  I made dog jackets by weaving orange and white ribbon once as shown in my January post titled, "My Grand Dogs are Ut fans."

A friend of mine bought a flower girl dress recently that had a bodice woven from ribbon like this.  I thought it was very pretty.

Weaving the ribbon wasn't too hard.  I used the big sheet of card board that I use for a cutting surface on top of my 2 ironing boards pushed together at their tallest height.  I first drew a square that was bigger than the bodice needed to be.  I then pinned the lighter shade of ribbon to the card board at a diagonal.  Then I wove the darker shade.  I had to keep pinning and unpinning as I went.  I also had to keep adjusting the ribbon so there wouldn't be gaps.  It was slippery.

 

 Once I had it all woven, I taped around the edges, turned it over and sewed stabilizer that I cut from the bodice pattern piece on the back side of the ribbon.  

I then cut it out.

 I am planning to sew pearls where the ribbons intersect.  On every intersection???  I don't know yet.  I may also embroider very small flowers in some of the diamond shapes.  

The flower girl dress I saw also had a ribbon pattern around the hem line.  I may or may not do that.  It may be too much.  We'll see when I get to that stage!

Now, it's time to go help my mom eat her dinner.  It must be awful not to be able to feed oneself.  I hate seeing my mother in this shape.  She's 84 and will be 85 in May.  She's so weak she can't even turn herself over in the bed.  She is completely wheelchair bound.  She has a really bad tremor; that's why she can't feed herself.  She has a better memory than I ever did, though.  She was a very independent lady who raised the three of us and some of my cousins with very little help.  She worked as a lab tech after getting a degree from UT in  microbiology!!  Then she taught science.  She hated teaching.  Then, she worked for the Department of Human Services with children and families.  She dealt with lots of abusive situations.  It is strange, though, to hear her say the words, "I love you," to me every day.  She never told any of us that she loved us.  She was not an affectionate person.  That's strange, because all of us kids, my siblings and cousins,  and all of our kids are very affectionate.  I believe in a HUG a day, or more!!