Dress project #2.

Every time I put the scissors to a piece of fabric I get a little nervous. Sometimes I chicken out completely and go make some popcorn or something. Scissors feel so permanent.

Then I remember what the Dean of the Conservatory of Music at Wheaton College said on my first day of college: It’s not that a great musician doesn’t make mistakes; it’s that a great musician knows how to cover them up.

Hmm.

And then there’s Tim Gunn from Project Runway,

who I imagine towering over me in my sewing room, saying, “Make it work, People.” And I start to realize that it’s not about perfection, it’s about making it work–covering up my mistakes, being flexible and able to change course if needed.

So, for this next project, I set off to Goodwill to find something that I wouldn’t cry over if I messed up.

Enter this completely unattractive man’s shirt.

So ugly, and SO big.

Using this tutorial on Made By Lex, and this tutorial on Craftster.org, I started cutting and pinning, nearly breaking my back and breaking a sweat.

After two nights of doing and re-doing. I emerged from downstairs with this! Yay!

What can you do with a couple vintage pillowcases? I made my first matching dresses for Ellie and Emma Rose!

I’ve seen these types of dresses at farmers’ markets and such in summertime, and I always thought they were so cute! When I got my sewing machine I knew I wanted to figure out how to make them. They look easy enough, and they are! I used a couple different tutorials–this was the main one I used, and I used this one, too.

It’s hard to get these girls to stand still. Ellie just wanted to dance in her new dress, but I think you can see a pretty decent picture of the dress here:

So sweet!

If it weren’t for the elastic, these would have taken no time at all. Even for me, beginner that I am.

But there was elastic involved, and I learned a couple things about working with it in the process:

1. I now have a strong distaste for elastic.

2. Don’t thread the whole elastic piece through your casing until AFTER you’ve sewn one end to the garment. Otherwise, it’ll get lost in the casing, as mine did several times.

3. Attach a safety pin to the end that you’re threading through the casing so you essentially pull the safety pin through instead of just the elastic. Key: make sure you don’t pin the safety pin too close to the edge of the elastic piece, or else your elastic may rip, leaving you with an unattached safety pin and a bunch of elastic lost in the casing. Then you just might have to undo the stitch you had just done to avoid lesson #2. And that would be frustrating.

I still love this though–even in the midst of battling the elastic. Sewing makes me feel the same way I felt in the photography darkroom in college–an escape way better than reality TV, even. And it’s way different than songwriting–you can just lose yourself in the sewing room for a few hours and come away with something awesome that someone can wear or play with!

And, if you have any tips for me, comment with them!

I have found my new favorite thing to do. SEWING. I love it.

A skirt and legwarmers. My first foray into clothing.

No, I didn’t make the skirt from scratch. It used to be a dress that had stains on it that I couldn’t get out. But I think it’s even cuter as a skirt!

The leg warmers used to be these:

HA! So fun! If you want to reuse your old comfy socks because, like me, you can’t throw any article of clothing away, you can find the tutorial I used here.

Here’s another picture of the finished products. Note how excited Ellie is that Mommy made her what she calls a “new, beautiful dress!” (everything’s a dress for her these days).

Next project: matching dresses for the girls made from vintage pillowcases. I’m almost done, so keep your eyes peeled!

I’m not sure why I’ve chosen to make animals with my sewing machine instead of what I dream of making: dresses for Ellie and Emma. Maybe it’s because I’m not emotionally attached to stuffed animals the way I am to little cute dresses. Maybe it’s because the stakes don’t seem very high if they don’t turn out right . . . I mean, heck, remember how much Ellie loves Mr. Owl?

Then again, maybe it’s just that I got a sewing machine a couple weeks before Easter and didn’t have Easter bunnies for their baskets yet.

Whatever the case, I made bunnies. And here they are:

This was my first go. No pattern. I think it’s cute in a very weird, kind of creepy way. But Ellie on Easter morning confessed that she didn’t like it. I think she was just more excited about some other things in her basket. Because, really, how can she not like this?

About mid-way through that one, I decided that I needed a pattern and I fell in love with this:

I was so excited to see how easy it was, so I went for it.

Who would have thought that this cute turtleneck (happily modeled by Ellie when she was about 7 months old):

Could become this?

Success! I made something I LOVE!

So far, I’ve made one thing.

Well, three things, if you count this:
and this:

Clearly, these are confidence boosters, so I decided to actually try to make something useful. I looked around on the internet and found this:

Looks easy enough, right?

So I took this shirt that has never fit Ellie right:

and this red corduroy dress that also never fit into her wardrobe well:

combined it with this tablecloth:

and made this:

Now, we’re all familiar with my fear of crafts, so this owl is significant for several reasons.

The first is the obvious. It’s my first sewing project.

The second, a little less obvious, is that it’s not perfect and I did it anyway.

The third, even less obvious, is that Ellie loved it so much she took it to bed with her.

When my little 2 1/2 year old gem parades around the house with her new stuffed owl that she watched Mommy make just for her, when she names it Mr. Owl and says repeatedly, “I love Mr. Owl. He’s so beautiful, ” my heart swells and the Father lets me in on a beautiful truth.  What I make doesn’t have to be perfect to be worth making and to be worth loving. And that gives me freedom to explore and experiment and let my imagination of who I am and what I can do run wild.