Happy 4th of July!

Happy belated 4th of July!  I hope everyone had a fun and safe Friday.  Our local police posted on their FB site that there were 50,000 people out and about at the beaches.  I completely believe it too given how crowded and congested the traffic was.

Our 4th was pretty laid back.  We didn't even have a BBQ.  I know, blasphemy.  C slept in so I lounged in bed with her while my husband took on the toddler.  Have I mentioned how amazing my husband is?  I spent my extra time in bed thinking about what I wanted to do and decided that the girls just had to have 4th of July dresses. When ideas pop into my head there really is no way of pushing them aside.

I didn't own the kind of sundress pattern that I had in my mind so I made one up.  Unfortunately I don't think I could ever recreate it so the dress is really one of a kind.

I just grabbed the fabric I had on hand.  The quality of the fabric is not so great.  In fact I think the blue was from Walmart and is thin and rough.  But the dress turned out cute and summery anyway.

Of course C couldn't get left of out.  So I whipped up a dress for her.  Thank goodness it fit.  It's a pretty snug fit too.  Whoops.

We had friends staying in a water front hotel so they invited us to watch the fireworks on the roof pool deck.  It was the best view ever and we were pleasantly surprised at how well C did.  I expected her to lose her mind since she startles at loud noises.

What?  I'm a delicate flower baby.

We were sharing the deck with a large party.  We believe the party was a rehearsal dinner.  How awesome must it have been for them to have fireworks at the end of their party?  The part that was awkward was listening to the intimate speeches about the people that we have never met.  I tried, really I did, not to eavesdrop.  I now know more about these people than I could ever wish to know.  Karen and Raj Raj, I wish you both a happy marriage with your love of ordering all the items off a menu, watching loads of HGTV, and boozing.  Always the boozing.

We know this much.

In the end everyone had a lovely time and I hope you did too.

Scalloped Princess Dress: Ariel's Day Out

I'm so excited to show off B's latest dress!  I'm participating in Lydia's first blog tour at Little Kiwis Closet.  For this tour the contributors are all sewing up their version of the Scalloped Princess Dress.  I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's creations.  These are all super talented women and I'm so honored to be showcased among them.  Also check out the link at the end of the post for a fantastic giveaway opportunity!

This pattern is the perfect canvas to be creative and create any princess dress.  It has great options for bodice necklines and hemlines so it is easy to find the combination that you want.  The instructions are clear and the pieces sew together easily and beautifully.  The dress is a lovely fit for B.  I followed the sizing of the chest rather than the age.  (B usually wears size 4 but her chest measurement indicated that she should be in a size 3.)      

The main difficulty I had was my own fault.  I decided to get direction from my customer.  Bad idea.  My customer is fairly exacting and terms like "inspired by" don't go over well.  Mostly because she doesn't understand them or the point of having an "inspired by" dress.  Consequently, I had to figure out how to add long sleeves and my very first cuffs.  My initial thought was to draft sleeves but then I got too scared because the rest of the dress was too cute to ruin.  I ended up modifying sleeves from another pattern.  The bonus was that it came with instructions on how to attach cuffs.  

Check out my beautiful sleeves!

The other difficult part for me was that for the black part of the dress was a thick cotton.  It made it more difficult to top stitch the princess V bodice hem to the skirt.  If I had followed the recommendation to sew in a gathering stitch I would not have had to rip out my stitches so many times.  Good thing the fabric was so thick it could handle that kind of abuse.

If not for the issues I self generated, the dress would have been super quick to sew up. As it was it only took a few evenings. One of my favorite parts is the back of the dress. Look how sweet that scoop back is! It's so darling for the little princess in your life.

 As soon as I put this dress on her she would not take it off.  She insisted on wearing it to dinner and got marinara sauce on the cuff.  Such is the life of a princess dress!

Admit it, if you had a twirly dress, you would twirl too!

I can't leave the post without an adorable baby photo. So here's baby C with more food on her hands and face than in her belly.  I could just nibble on those sticky cheeks all day.

Where's my princess dress?

Be sure to check out Shelly's dress at Sew Shelly Sew and don't forget the giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Lessons in Personal Space

Personal space is a new keyword at my house these days.  B loves her sister but can't seem to get out of her face.  Luckily C doesn't seem to mind at the moment but I don't want to wait until B gets clawed in the face before she learns that lesson.

Claws at the ready.

Since C arrived the B and I have not had any time for just the 2 of us.  This is generally because she is either attached to my boob or screaming her head off because I'm not holding her.  Luckily I have a dear friend that is used to the attached kid problem and she is able to handle C a few hours at a time.

Why wouldn't you want to be with me all the time?

B and I decided to spend our precious 2.5 hours together at the ArtZone.  It's a place that has all sorts of art stations set up around a tiny facility and includes a little play area with dress up clothes.  I think that this was her favorite part.

I'm only a monster when you take your eyes off me.

 The only part that spoiled the mood was a nanny and her 2 year old.  The little girl wanted the tinker bell costume B put on and keep poking B in the chest.  B kept brushing the little girl's hand away.  The nanny decided to handle this by muttering that B was pushing the little girl.  Excuse me?  The nanny was being passive aggressive so I decided to simply ignore her.  The poking continued and finally B did actually gently push the girl away.  I decided not to admonish B for the pushing except to tell her that she needs to be gentle when someone is smaller than her.  I felt she was in the right to defend her personal space.  Perhaps I should have reminded her to use words but wouldn't you be ticked off if someone continuously poked you in the chest?

This is my personal space!

My favorite part of the morning was when we dropped C off at my friend's house.  B pointed at her and her 2 kids saying, "you and you and you.  You all watch Charlotte.  Make sure she doesn't cry."  I'm not sure she really understood what was going on because she started screaming, "STOP!  We FORGOT Charlotte!" as soon as I pulled out of the driveway.

There's no doubt about it, I have the best sister!

In sewing news, B's class had a picnic for the last day of school.  The notice her teacher sent instructed parents to bring a blanket to sit on.  For a year I have been telling myself, don't buy one because you can make one every time I saw blankets on sale.  Clearly this line of thought does not motivate me because we have been blanket-less for so long.  However, I couldn't have us go without a blanket to a school picnic.  I sewed all day and stayed up until 3am to finish this beauty.  I followed a tutorial by You and Mei.  Hers has a flap that keeps the blanket rolled up but I ran out of time.  Why do I procrastinate?  I could still theoretically still add it, but let's be honest here, that's never gonna happen.

So bright and sunny!