Moving Right Along

I’ve just spent a couple of days whipping up a white dress for Princess Pink to wear as Flower Girl for her dad’s friend’s wedding. Raiding the stash instead of shopping was totally worthwhile because I had everything I needed: pattern from an older issue of Burda, World of Fashion magazine, white cotton broadcloth fabric (it was going to be dyed some day), 4 pearly buttons, yards and yards of narrow lace edging, and white thread, both for the serger and the sewing machine. It’s turning out really cute and I’m nearly done. Deadline: tomorrow evening when they will pick it up on the way to the wedding rehearsal. Total time from request to completion: 4 days – one of which was already completely booked elsewhere. 5-year-old granddaughter’s happiness: priceless! Hopefully there will be a photo later.

The hour I spent cleaning, oiling and setting up both sewing machine and serger were worth it. I’ve had the sewing machine (Pfaff 1222E) for around 33 years and know it like the back of my hand but the serger (Pfaff CoverStyle) is only 3 and I haven’t used it for awhile so it took a bit of reintroduction. It didn’t disappoint me though and worked like a trouper. I did most of the seaming and all of the edging with it and with a bottom hem and 3 extra ruffle tiers that was a lot of yards/metres! I even gave the differential feed a good workout and used it to gather the top edge of the lower two tiers. The sewing machine came in handy to apply the bodice’s full facing, the lace to the 4 hems, the ruffles to the skirt and skirt to the bodice. Plus the buttonholes of course. The only hand-sewing was the bodice facing to the skirt on the inside and the buttons. And the results are modern but frooffy enough for Princess P. I made a size 6 so it should fit her for a little while but I don’t know how much use a white dress can get without becoming indelibly stained. If it was me, that would be sometime within the first 20 minutes! Oh well, she can play “bride” in it later.

All the sewing has ignited my Desire To Sew. Unfortunately I only have a short while before our vacation so there’s no point starting something before that. And there’s also packing to do plus making the garden ready to withstand some major neglect while we’re away. Milady Daughter can pick what veggies she likes and water some if she has time but I can’t expect her to lavish the kind of attention on it that I do. Since there’s no cats to look after any more, she probably will only come over a few times a week to check on things. Luckily, although she lives an hour away, she works just a mile down the hill.

What else? Oh yeah, here’s the Hot Springs Socks metamorphosed into the Dead Simple Lace Socks:

The pattern is still a little lost in the yarn but it’s much better than it was. And I’m liking the knitting much better too – only one lace row alternated with a plain row. I don’t have to count where I am and I can see what I’m doing for a change. These are already longer than when I took the photo.

Tomorrow I’m busy with Spectrum Study Group. We’re going on a field trip to Jefferson’s, a local wholesale notions supplier, and then out to dim sum at one of the best Chinese restaurants in a city that’s just full of them. Yum! And it’s all in my neighbourhood too.

‘Splain to me why time moves so fast? Gotta go finish The Dress.