little bits of scraps make flowers

 One week ago my daughter went to one of our family friends weddings where she caught the bouquet.  The dress she wore to the wedding which you see at the right and above was 5 inches too long before that event.  So quickly I cut off the hem and she did a hand rolled hem on it so she could wear it to the event. 

 Last night I cut the hem into little circles 30 of them . Then folded those in half and did a gathering stitch on the raw edge side stringing 5 of these together to make a flower.  I had enough fabric from the hem to make 6 of these flowers.  I  then sewed them to her upper left shoulder of the dress and removed the bow from center front and stitched it into the middle of the flower cluster.  I also went through my buttons and picked out rhinestone buttons from three generations of our family from both sides  an sewed them to the center of the flowers to add a little sparkle.

 Recently I did A similar style detail on a dress for play Anything Goes.  In this dress I sewed the entire dress all 5 layers of skirt and all bias. and ruffle sleeves and lots of flowers on it.

 Here you can see what the flowers look like up close

 prior to flowers and rhinestones being added.

  This is the lovely Mandee Shaffer who use to be one of my bosses who draped this dress for me to make.  She is now the Manager of the West Valley Hale costume shop here she is being silly and just wearing a costume for an upcoming play.  I so miss working with her one of my most favorite people in all the world.

Homecoming

As those that follow this blog know ... I went back to collage ... It is going great crazy busy.  Doing  lots of costuming in my job at the costume shop.  Did the Wizard of Oz Will post some of that later and some on Major Barbra  and  and An Ideal Husband.  Working on Trail of Dreams and Carry on Mr. Bowditch ... and lastly The King and I.  So yes working on all that and 18 credit hours and 20 hours a week at work so yes trying to post just not succeeding.  Still wife and mom so life is busing out of its seams everywhere.

But my daughter went to homecoming a few times in the last few weeks and I wanted to show one of her dresses.  We used the dress in the last post.  So you can see its transformation.  It got re-worked several times before we were finished with it.
So the first thing we did was cut off 3.5 inches off of the dress to make it able to be worn without heels.  As my daughter's date was almost the same height as she is, she didn't want to be taller by wearing heels.

     Originally we were going to make the dress have silver and turquoise accents. The first go round we added turquoise.

 Added white bows but my daughter hated them, so they quickly got removed.

  The silver fringe my daughter loved and it made it to the final piece.  Originally the beads that were blue were free form ... when they got switched to red I put them in an organized pattern.

Later we added snowflakes and bows but those made it look to Christmas like to my daughter so those did not last. 

Then the date found a shirt he liked but it didn't match what we had done so we reworked the dress again but with red, white, black, and silver.  Added a black bow to the hip as a detail to help explain the gathering of the dress.

As always we made a beaded hair piece for my daughter and a beaded boutonnière for the young man.

 

 

My daughter at the second homecoming dance she went to.

Pre-Valentine's Day

My grandmother was a florist for years, so was my aunt, my older sister, and I was a florist for years.  So yes you can guess correctly in that Valentine's is like one of my least favorite holidays because it always meant lots of work and not seeing those you loved.  It also meant customers coming into my work because they felt guilty not because they wanted to make their loved ones feel loved.

My grandmother is in heaven and this is now one of those holidays I think of her.  Which does make the holiday a little better to me as I remember working with her side by side when I was a little girl.  When I think of her I think of the little guardian angles she passed out I have two types from her.  My Aunt Virgie actually started this tradition but my Vavo carried it on.  I have saved many of these tokens over the years I plan on giving them to my grandchildren on their 8th birthdays at their baptisms as a gift from their great great grandmother in heaven.  I think it will be special or at least I hope so many generations tied together in a little token.  I have 12 tokens so I have saved 4 per child of mine if some have less than four I will save them for those who may have more than 4 kids.  Yes there are two types of angles that are different the silver colored ones are the more prized ones as that is the type most people in my family remember but she did pass out two types of angles.  Most probably do not remember the rest (the goldish coins) but they are all still from my Vavo.

The photo in this post is of my beautiful  Vavo and two of my three children when they were little people.  The picture in the picture on the right of two of my children they are wearing two dresses that I made them for Easter one year one is sewn and one is crocheted I made the headband too that the younger is wearing.

Hope you have a lovely Valentine's with loved ones and remember the day is about love for all not for guilt.

Jo's dress and Aunt March's and Amy's pantalets

I finished a dress for Jo this last week it is the dress she wears in act 1. Since the character Jo wants to be in the military.  I tried to make this have a little bit of a military feel to the dress.

 I used vintage military buttons as a pin at the neck and at the bottom of the collar and on the sleeves.   The buttons come from a great aunt of mine and my Vavo both of which are in heaven.  I am keeping the costumes after the play so I am not worried that I will not have them anymore.  There is only one of the eagle one I used at the collar.  The rest of the buttons all match each other and have anchors on them.

 The fringe on this dress (at the collar and hem) was given to me a few months ago by a dear friend of mine, we have been friends for over 20 years.  She gave me a lot of different fringes and trims so you will be seeing them a lot in this play.   The black you see on the collar is a black velvet ribbon I found thrift shopping a few years back.  The white braid around the black velvet is clearance trim from hobby lobby.  I have this habit of picking up things I think will be useful in the future just I never know when that is in the future.  Some times days or weeks sometimes years.  I also used black upholstery cording on the white collar and red around the sleeves just to give it added touches here and there.  Just because the item is made for furniture does not mean I can not use it in costumes you would be amazed at how many upholstery trims I use and how much upholstery and drapery fabrics I use.

The collar is made of two layers of velvet ribbon back to back with eyelet lace inserted between them. The zipper on the back is hard to see but it is a real dark dark pink almost looks red.  I found 2 backs 3 weeks ago thrift shopping that had about 40 zippers in them not back for about 6 dollars spent.  This is one of those.

It is hard to see in the photos but there are 4 growth pleats around the bottom of the hem of this dress.  Those pleats took up a total of 12 inches of fabric length to make this the right height for the player.

The petticoat you see is made from bleached muslin and also have 7 growth pleats in it.  It also has a red lace trim.  The lace was found the same time when I found the lace that I dyed gray for Aunt Marches cape I found a lot that day at a real good price.   The best way to costume is to go junking I would say you never know what you will find and how it will be used.  The tulle netting you see is to help keep the dress a little puffier at the waist it is also in the sleeves the sleeves and bodice are fully lined so you can not see the netting there but it serves its purpose to keep the sleeves puffier.  (sorry it was cold out so you also see my daughters flannel PJ's not part of the costume.  The picture to the right of my daughter in the petticoat is after being ironed.  The one below is before being ironed big difference in appearance.

The daughter wearing the above dress is a little too small for it and my oldest daughter is a little too big so it will look better on the actual person I made it for especially since she has raven black hair and is a very pretty person in general.


 I also finished a set of pantaloons for Aunt March.    This set of pantaloons is made from clean old sheets thus making them real soft to the wearer.  I also used that same sheet on Jo's dress above to make the collar and cuffs.  The lace at the hem of the pantalet is the same lace I used on the collar of the first dress for the Aunt March character.This is the first of 5 pantalets and 2 pantaloons I will need to make for the play.

I have another set of pantalets that I am making for the character Amy in the play.  Since that character likes nicer things hers will be made out of eyelet fabric.  As if she took the time to embroider her under garments because she wanted finer things is the thinking there.  I will update when they are done to this post.

Yes the photo is black and white.  I wanted it to have an older look to it looked to bright in color with a bright orange quilt behind her to hide me sewing table from the picture.  Silly but there you are.

Update say day:

This next set should have been ironed.  These are Amy's pantalets they are made with left over eyelet fabric from my daughters dress.  I only had enough fabric to make one set.  I have little bits left over still which might work for sleeves on a dress.  Because the fabric is a batiste it is rather sheer so my daughter is wearing her cross country shorts under these for the photo.  OK! I  know these look long but my daughter is 4 1/2 inches shorter in the leg than the person that plays Amy in the play and so of course these fit Amy's character not my oldest daughter.  I liker the heavier fabric I used earlier better.  But i thought the character of Amy would have added embroidery and eyelet to her underclothing to make it fancier ie. the use of the eyelet fabric.

Day 4 and Day 5 and RPL cord

Day 4

I waited 1 day to post the last two items in the heirloom sewing becasue I was working on posting the free lace pattern yesterday.  This would have been a 7 day set but I decided to show the matching sets the dress with matching slips together instead of separate so this is the last post of heirloom baby dresses for  a while.

dress and slip set

 

This dress has the most detail out of all the dresses I have show in this grouping.  It is unbeleiable how many pintucks are on this little dress.

 Pin tucks on both the front and back of this dresses yoke area.  And lots of embroidery by hand on the yoke and hem and some by machine as well to frame the dress and the yoke.

The matching  slip

The slip shows its age a little bit with a  tear under the sleeve.

As with the other items I have shown as of late this also has a machine sewn edging.

But ahnd embroidery still takes center stage on the hem of the slip.

Day 5

Plain Jane slip

This slip is pretty plane Jane as slips go but it does it purpose well to make a cotton batiste dress not be see through.  

This is made out of taffeta And is finished with a simple zig zag stitch over the edges to give the slip a little bit of a scalloped edging.  Simple but useful.

Romanian Point Lace cord

 

I also had to get some Romanian Point lace cord made for the the RPLALs.   It does not just make it self so that is what I have been working on the last two days and 16 yards to show for it.   I know does not seem like much but it is an amazing amount of time that goes into making the cord before you can even think about making the lace.  Now it is all neat and ready to be used on what ever project I choose.  

I keep all the done cord in a metal tin ( that use to hold chocolates).  The joy of making a cord that unravels in 2 directions I do not have to make it fit a certain spot on a certain pattern I can just make cord when time permits and place in the tin waiting for future use.  You can tell which is the newest one I just finished it has the most on it.

 

When I get little bits of this and that left I do something like the pansy doily that can use up all kids of odds and ends in colors and sizes and voila no more odds and ends.