I am sure you have all missed seeing me here for such a long time. As you can see, I've been making people! And it has been a big, big effort. School got out mid-June. I was suddenly home all day long with four kids. Then on July 1st we packed up and went across the country to our grandparents houses for a few weeks. Then we came home, just in time to turn around to attend my little sister's wedding! With each trip I have grown a few inches, added a few pounds, and grown even more exhausted than I was before I left (if that was even possible)!
Friends, we are in the home stretch. I can have these babies any day after September 1st! Though I should be buoyed up by the "light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel", I have found myself almost more depressed than ever. Pregnancy is the longest journey EVER. I used to liken it to marathons, since I am a marathon runner. I used to readily find similarities. But this time, I feel like I would need to liken it to something way harder than a marathon. I have tried to sew here and there throughout the summer. It usually works like a good session of therapy for me. But with so many aches and pains, my sewing time is limited. I've been a terrible blogger. Once I finish something, sitting at the computer to talk about it is sort of the last thing I want to do. But with summer almost over, and new babies on the horizon I decided to do one big post of our summer dresses to-date.
I'll start with the most recent. My baby sister got married last week. Her color scheme was a collection of greens, surrounding mint, plus cream and gold. It was beautiful! The little nieces were wearing beautiful ivory ruffled dresses from JCrew, but to make the wedding weekend festive, I thought my ladies should have something to wear that was wedding color scheme appropriate.
In my week between visiting the grandparents and leaving for the wedding, I came across
Adrianna's post over at Crafterhours. She had made her girls matching color blocked skirts, with mint! I was so inspired I had to make some of our very own! If you want to know how I did it, read through the comment section on her post. She gave me great instructions there in that comment section. It was enough that I was able to make one for Jane. Then, since I didn't have enough fabric left to do another skirt exactly the same, I had to come up with something different for Ruby.
And because Adrianna was being my inspiration for this last minute sewing, I decided to follow her
tutorial for the Boardwalk dress for Ruby. Another outstanding tutorial. I could have made Ruby's dress a size or two smaller, but oh well. Now she'll wear it all school year long too :)
These are both very fast projects. I think each one was done in about two hours or less! That includes the cutting. These girls looked perfectly festive during the wedding weekend. And it was gratifying to sew again.
These little knit numbers were created in time for our trip across the country. I knew the girls needed more summer casual dresses, and I had a pile of knit fabric to work with. I had high hopes of even creating a tutorial for these dresses, and part of me still thinks it might happen.
This dress starts off with Simplicity pattern number 4927. The exact same pattern used to make the bow dresses back in April. I used knit tutorials from various bloggers to figure out how I like to do the binding around the neck. Even the pattern piece for the little cap sleeve comes with the pattern! These are seriously fast and simple. Now that the wedding is over, I really might try to make a few more for the school year, and hopefully one of those times I can take some photos along the way.
Hope you are enjoying our library totes in the background. The library has saved our summer this year! But in order to keep track of everything, it's really nice to have these little library totes to take with us, and to store stuff in. I still owe Jane her little library card pouch.
Last but not least, are actually the dresses I made the longest ago. This is a pair of Oliver&S dresses from the
Croquet Dress pattern.
I made these assembly line style so that I would have two when I was done. It took forever! Oliver&S patterns always do. They always turn out beautiful, but they take way too long to satisfy your need for instant gratification. I made them in the size 8 without any alterations, and was pretty sad at the end to see that I should have gone up a size or two to have them last longer. These probably won't make it too much past summer, which is a shame.
I used the Anna Maria Horner voile from the Little Folks Pastry Line. I let each of the girls pick out her own color to ensure they would love their new dress. The voile is dreamy and flowy and light weight. Perfect for summer, albeit a little see-through.
I love the back closure on this dress. And I let the girls pick which variation of collar they wanted, and was kind of surprised to discovered that they both wanted the same thing.
So there you have it! I have sewn here and there. I dream of still sewing a big before September first, but I won't promise anything.
Hopefully you understand, that whether I am sewing or not, I am creating all the day long...
Wish me luck!
