Graceful as a gazelle

Yesterday, I made the trip to my daughter's house two hours from me, to do one last fitting on my granddaughter of the dress previously mentioned in several posts. Many of you have messaged me to let me know you are following along on the progress of it via my blog, so now that I know that, I will try to draft more posts to keep you updated. This has been a tedious, and sometimes frustrating (because of the pattern), but most of all, a very fun project!!! When I see the happiness of my granddaughter as she waltzs around the living room with the skirt portion of it on, and the hoop skirt underneath gracefully gliding with the skirt, it makes my heart smile. She is taking ballroom dancing lessons and absolutely loves it!! As soon as I am at liberty to divulge the particulars of this project, all of this will make more sense to you.

As for the pattern she chose, I would never, ever recommend it to someone who doesn't have several thousand hours, or about 20 years of sewing experience under their belt. It is poorly written and not exactly historically accurate. In fact, it is such an awful pattern, I won't even give mention of the company I purchased it from. This company uses the measurement and sizing standards for the time period, which is fine, but I have a hard time believing that is even accurate. My granddaughter wears a size 6 (or 5 in juniors), and according to the measurements on their website, she wears a size 10 in the bodice. I made that size, and now find I am still going to have to do some altering. The original has hooks and eyes for fastening up the back. It is supposed to be a very fitted bodice, with boning, but she is still going to need about an inch more for closing. What I have decided to do is add buttonbands on each side so I can use buttons for the closure. This will still keep within the era as they used buttons in that time period...lots of buttons! I think she will be much happier with that than hooks and eyes anyway, and it will add more decoration to it with some little pearl buttons. The dress is finished, hemmed, and ready to be attached to the bodice.
Alex is going to be absolutely gorgeous for her project, and I have been truly honored to be a part of it!!! The pic below is the bodice sans sleeves...thought I would show you a rough draft of it. Oh, and for the record, there is a reason she chose fabrics that are predominately brown, which will be explained much later down the road. The second picture is what the bodice will end up looking like.

A little knitting has taken place, not much, but some. I realized Mother's Day here in the U.S. is just a couple of weeks away. My mom has requested some new dishcloths, so I thought I would try to get a few knitted up for her. This one is called Vertical Stripes, one of my favorite patterns for dishcloths. I have spoiled her with these, they are now the only ones she will use. I have about 15 more rows to go on the shawl and need to have that done by the day before Mother's Day. So many irons in the fire, but I will get it all done, because that is how I roll. I have had to forego my foray into the spinning world for now the way I want to, but eventually, I will be able to devote the proper time my little ladybug and I both deserve. Until that time, I have been trying to get at least ten minutes a day to familiarize myself a little bit more each time. I have faith it will all come together!

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