Becoming Jane, or at least dressing like her

Last weekend my niece, her roommate and I attended the Jane Austen Festival in Louisville, Kentucky, and had a most wonderful time. You can learn all about the festival here:
http://jasnalouisville.com/2014-jane-austen-festival

What I wanted to share, besides my love for all things Jane Austen, are these three dresses I made for us to wear at the event. Mine had to be pulled up in the back with pins to keep the train from dragging in the mud the first night, then I liked it so much that way, and was so mindful of the pleated trim that had taken me an hour per yard to make, that I left it that way for the remainder the festival. In keeping with the self-imposed frugality of the summer, for my dress I used fabric my aunt gave me a few years ago, (but paid $20 for "The Elegant Lady's Closet" pattern).

For the girls' dresses I used Simplicity 4055, which sewed up fairly quickly. At the last minute I whipped up three little matching bags called "reticules" and voila! we were ready for the Regency promenade.

New Pfaff City

Look what DH got me for our 30th anniversary! I'm so excited I could almost stay home from church just to play with it, but I'll defer gratification a few more hours. It's a Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.2, to replace my sadly no-longer-fixable 1222E, which we traded in along with the two parts machines. I hope to get thirty more happy years out of this machine (and the same husband).

Summer top #3, not free but very cheap

It took me a while to get top #3 of my Seven Summer Top Challenge finished, but it was worth it. I love how crazy this top turned out. The pattern is McCall's M6649, but I shortened the sleeves and added turn-back cuffs to make it cooler to wear (and to accommodate a fabric shortage). If I make this pattern again, I will move the pockets away from the center a half inch; they look too close together to me. To make this shirt, I combined a small piece of leftover Hawaiian shirt print fabric someone gave me with an unused blue curtain, both from my stash. I had to buy a fat quarter of fabric in a contrasting print ($1.99) and buttons ($.99) for a grand total of $2.98 plus $.20 sales tax. $3.18 for a new shirt is very affordable, even if it's technically a violation of the challenge to spend anything. I could have used more fabric and buttons from my stash, but it wouldn't have turned out this well. I made up the rules and I can break them!

Next project: My own Regency dress for the Jane Austen Festival in Louisville. I've already made two, for my niece and her friend. The festival is in two weeks, yikes! Stay tuned...

Summer top #2, absolutely free

This top I refashioned from a rayon batik dashiki-thingy that was a gift from a friend in Africa. I loved the fabric, but the arm openings were so deep on the original garment that I really couldn't wear it outside the house. Once the neck binding started to fray, it was obviously time for a refashion.

I didn't use a pattern for this one. I probably should have checked the hip measurement before cutting, as I could use an extra inch or so there, but the top is cool and comfortable and completely wearable. I especially like the fringe on the bottom.

A week's worth of summer tops without spending a dime

This spring I finally had time to enter a couple of outfits in the Bloomington Trashion/Refashion  show, which was a blast. I refashioned a couple of old Mexican embroidery garments that had belonged to my mother, plus some string from a defunct furniture factory, into cute new outfits, modeled in the show by a couple of adorable young women. 

The whole experience got me thinking hard about all the wonderful materials I have tied up in unused yard goods and boring, outdated or ill-fitting clothes. At the same time, I don't have many summer clothes that I actually want to wear. And thus was born this summer's challenge: Make a week's worth of new tops, seven in all, from fabrics and notions already in my stash.

Here's number 1, made from a piece of batik fabric I bought in Kinshasa six years ago. The pattern is New Look 6107. The covered buttons, interfacing and thread were all found in my stash. I love this top; it's a flattering shape and the pattern wasn't hard to adjust to my size. I'm visiting my sister in Minneapolis and have worn it at least three times already, so this one's definitely a keeper.

I made a set of Roman shades for my sister's bay window while I was here, which turned out very nicely, too, so I'm feeling very creatively successful at the moment. We're having a great time, but tomorrow I will return to the Hoosier state and my brain is already working hard on tops #2 and 3.

Fighting winter demotivation

It's crappy outside. Here in southern Indiana, we aren't bombarded by snow like our friends in the northeast, but it's 3° outside and still fairly slick. I don't mean to whine; it's winter and this is what winter is supposed to do. Still, the long-term effects of a hard winter are nefarious: eat too much, waste too much time playing with my cell phone, exercise sporadically if at all.

So, in an effort to snap out of it, I finally persuaded myself to start a needlework project. It's stash-busting time (when is it not?), mostly because I have no ready cash for new yarn. I found this blue wool worsted weight, the green from last year's hat project, and the pink from a long ago craft fail that got unraveled and stashed.

I'm not in love with the checkerboard texture yet, but it will be a colorful and warm addition to someone's wardrobe. Stay tuned for the final result.

Family update: DD graduated from IU in May and is working for a lab in West Virginia. DS is a freshman at IU studying biochemistry. DH,  Mr. Fuzz and I are just trying to stay warm.

Bleaching/dyeing disaster

A couple of years ago I bought DD a cute turquoise cotton sundress.  At the time she was sharing an apartment with a young woman whose concept of cleaning was to pile her dirty socks next to the door and stash a month's worth of empty beer bottles in the coat closet; still, the girl cleaned the kitchen at least once. I know this because DD leaned against the counter in her new dress and the harsh cleaner left big white bleach spots all down the front of the skirt.

I couldn't bear to throw the dress away, so I stashed it in the closet determined to fix it. This last week DD and I rediscovered it, and I picked up a box of teal dye at Michael's (unfortunately they didn't have turquoise).

Obviously,  the first thing I had to do was bleach the whole thing white so it would dye evenly. Ha! Easier said than done when the only bleach available is a cheap dollar store brand or an equally useless Aldi brand. Dear readers, it simply was not possible for these awful products to remove the color from the fabric. I started at one part bleach to four parts water, increased the concentration to 1:1, soaked the thing for thirty minutes and it was still bright blue. I finally gave up and moved on to the dye.

Next disappointment: look at that awful color! Even though it was supposed to be teal, and I was dyeing over turquoise,  there's hardly any blue in the color at all. And even worse, the spots I hoped to get rid of are still visible. Ever the optimist, DD thinks it can be beautiful again, but this mom is skeptical.