Of cuteness, clumping, and Jenny driving the car

So we went on a trip...

We tend to clump...

Isaiah re-explores his childhood...

Here are the kids, sporting my freezer paper creations.

Tirzah helped me wrangle Jenny for the pictures...

She's kind of squirmy...

"JENNY RUNNING AWAY!" she chortled and shrieked in glee, while running. I've spared you all the empty shots of the deck and yard, where she ran away.

Still running away, and laughing.

Baby had a grand time riding in a tiny wagon.

The kids wanted to go up and down the stair. Aunt Mali was close by. She's good with the kids.

Isaiah watered the garden....

...and everyone else. Including this photographer, who had to flee to the other end of the yard.

Jenny had fun too.

Then Daddy took the hose, and they both got to frolic in wet glee.

 

We tend to clump...

Jenny drove us home. There were a few dicey moments coming down from the mountains at night in a rainstorm, but she handled the challenges pretty well.

Tolkien-Inspired Bridesmaid Dress

My sister is being a bridesmaid in her friend's wedding. Because the bride loved Lord of the Rings, I tried to make it subtly Tolkien-ish while still being a normal dress.

And I wanted to try out styles for my as yet unmaterialized Every Day Lord of the Rings Clothing plans.....so this was a lot of fun.

For the bodice of the dress I made a princess seamed bodice, with a center seam to aid in the neckline notch, with cap sleeves. For the skirt of the dress, I made a simple half-circle (mid-lower calf) skirt, plus a sash. It closes in the back with a zipper.

The Tolkien-ish elements were mostly in the embroidery being vines and flowers and leaves (elven), with a wide neck-yoke like a lot of the Elvish dresses have in the Lord of the Rings movies, and with a notch like many medieval clothes have.

As you can see, I went with B. The skirt ended up more mid-calf length than ankle length like in the picture.

I made it out of Kona Cotton "Eggplant," hand-embroidered with DMC's color 154 "very dark grape," both a warm deep purple.

Soooo...I didn't make it for me, hence the wrinkles in how it fits on me. Also, the camera is not translating the color accurately in most of them.

So here's the front.

Back

THIS is the closest to actual color. Forgive my dumb expression...

This gives the best idea of the lines, and how the embroidery is in the neck and waist 

Closeup on the embroidery. I just free-handed the design on with a soap shard, and then did it all in chain stitch with DMC 154. I like how it turned out.

Waist Embroidery. Thankfully my twin does not have a mommy-belly.

So there you have it.

Aaaand here it is on her. :) I'm so proud.

Princess Leia's Ceremonial Dress

Here's a few pictures of the Princess Leia Ceremonial Dress from Star Wars Episode IV, that I made for my sister in law last October.

It's simply an empire-waisted dress of white cotton, fully lined. The bodice is darted, with a thin 'waistband' that joins to a rather full A line skirt. The sleeves are removable, as they are sewn onto a separate cotton underbodice she can wear with the dress or not. The sleeves are made of polyester (non shiny!) chiffon. It closes with an invisible zipper in the back. All materials were from Hobby Lobby.

 Here you get a better idea of the sleeves. Large triangle folded, with seam along underarm, sewn together until the elbow, then left open. Hemmed with baby hems using extremely thin strips of sew on interfacing, all straight seams.

 I sewed the sleeves onto a removable bodice she could wear underneath the dress, here you see it slipping out a little, I'm going to put stay straps in place.

She's so pretty. She made the necklace herself, from jump rings and home-made baked dough, painted with metallic model paint. She also made the belt herself, from painted fabric, cardboard, and buttons.

UPDATE: Jenny's R2D2 DRESS!

A Refashioned Dress: Moving Out to the Suburbs of Dorkville

So, in the time honored blogger tradition of taking a frumpy thrift store find and upcycling it into a cute little Mod-cloth-esque dress, I present:

MOVING FROM THE HEART OF DORKVILLE TO THE 'BURBS

I took this

And turned it into this

So basically I took it from the heart of Dorkville to the 'burbs of Dorkville. Or in other words in went from homeschooling mom to homeschooling mom. But I think its dorky with class in its reincarnation. There is an art to being a dork, after all.

It was a straight shirtwaist dress, floral print, with a collar. It took a little over an hour to

1.  Remove the collar (with a stitch ripper) and simply iron and fold the edges of the neckline and sew them back together sans collar.
2. cut the T-shirt sleeves to cap sleeves (I just chopped some off, and bound the edges with a long thin strip from the collar.)
3. Sew a strip of fabric to the inside back as a casing for elastic to gather it there and to give the bodice a tiny bit more shape
4. Hack off the dress a couple inches above the natural waist, and sew on a half-circle skirt from a thrifted sheet. Thankfully, the dress was loose enough that she can pull it on over her head, since the bodice extends a little past her waist, and its actually quite loose, the hint of fittedness actually comes from that bit of elastic at waist level in back. So I didn't have to extend the opening/closure into the skirt. Which was nice.

It's still definitely in the homeschooling mom camp, but I think its cute in its own dorky way.

A few more shots of the dress in action. And in case you are wondering, I didn't suddenly become photogenic, that's my twin, who is photogenic.