She desperately wanted to sleep in it. LOL! We had a minor malfunction with the ribbon about 2-3 hours after she wore it, so I had to get it off her to fix it. I forgot to knot the ribbons onto the elastic around the neckline, to make sure it didn't come unfrayed and pop off.

It's fixed now, though. LOL.

So, I was gifted a HUGE box of fabric from my friend. A lot of it was great for quilting, but some of it boggled my brain as to what to do with it.

My dear daughter picked up one 2 yard piece and insisted that I make a dress for her out of it...  I agreed, but it then sat around the house for several months while I thought about what I was going to do with it to make a dress...

I decided on a twirly dress, because she's three, and loves to be the center of all that is the universe. LOL.

So, with no real pattern in mind, I set to work with an old shirt for a guide on how big she was. Four hours later, I had the dress done and on her and she refused to take it off.









Enjoy!

You totally inspired me with this quilt. :-D I dug into my bin and found a stack of fat quarters and went to work...  I'll be posting my finished quilt hopefully next week.

Thank you for sharing!

~M

Oooo   to inspire someone . . .  wow.  I cannot think of a better compliment!!!   I look forward to seeing your spin on the idea.

OK - it's up. The link is here: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=374955.0.

Thank you again for inspiring me!

So, about a month or so ago, I saw this quilt http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=370827.0, which inspired me to go through all of my scraps, too.

I found two rolls of fat quarters that I hadn't used. Originally, they were to make fat quarter dresses for my DD, but I never got around to doing anything with them.  But the colors were so wonderful, I felt that they would make an amazing quilt together.

Thus, is my "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" quilt, with a matching pillow, to boot.









The batting I used was actually a recycled electrical blanket, with the wires pulled out of it. I've found that it makes a WONDERFUL batting, and is warm, as well as easily washed.  It's also SUPER cheap, which is great for those of us on a budget.  The piping around the edges of the pillow were also hand-made, with scraps of the same blanket.

I hope you enjoy my endeavor.

~M

So, this is updated, and will be hopefully updated again with the final photos of the coat with trim on it...  :-)

Thank you both. She's currently in the process of waiting for them to refund the money. It's supposed to be back to her in another few days. *rolls eyes* I'm hoping for her. I'm just glad that I was able to put together a dress that the bride really *loves*. It's especially nerve-wracking for me to make something when I've never met the person and really have no idea what she likes or doesn't.

~M

So, here's the skinny on this one...

The bride-to-be and her boyfriend decided, after being together for almost 15 years, that they should probably finally tie the knot now that they're having a baby.

The gown was ordered, and everything seemed to be coming together just fine...  UNTIL... *duh-duh-duhhhhhh!* The call that brides everywhere dread more than seeing gray hair in the mirror the day of the wedding:  The dress had been back-ordered and wouldn't be available for another 2 months.

This wouldn't have been an issue, except that it was 16 days til the wedding when they called to tell her.  Our panicked heroine called her step-sister and asked how on earth she was going to get a dress in less than 16 days...

The step-sister called me, and I said I'd do it, but I would need to know what it was going to be made of, etc...

The dress would be made of cotton, and preferably cream. The bridal colors were turquoise and brown, and while the bride-to-be had originally thought she should be in turquoise, she decided after thinking about it that cream would be best.

The bride-to-be had found a dress she really liked, but had decided against it since it wouldn't have made it in time from China. I took a look at the dress, and realized that I had the dress (well, mostly) in a pattern that's now out of print...



Another little snag in this was that the budget was EXTREMELY small...  $100 at best for the dress...  And they hadn't been reimbursed from the store where they'd ordered the other dress...  EEK!

So, off we went to the local fabric store to see what we could see...  We found exactly what we were looking for, which was surprising, considering. I thought about the color scheme and offered up the idea that the insert in the front of the dress should have some color to it - and we found the perfect way to do that, too, using the bridal colors:



So, I went home and started figuring out how to get started on this dress and make it work the first time around, since we had limited fabric and no way to really fit it to her...

Oh, did I mention that the bride lives about 4 hours south of me? And we didn't have the ability to fit her at all?  Yeah...  I had 3 measurements for her...  LOL.

Luckily for me, a friend of mine almost had the same size everything... *whew* So, I had a bit of a stroke of luck there. :-)

I started putting everything together and it decided not to put up a fuss... I kept thinking that it would - that something would go wrong...  Somehow, it would completely go south on me.  Why? Because that's the way things go when you're rushed and have all obstacles working against you. *chortle*

The first thing I did was the bust...  And I added some ribbon to the front and permanently sewed it on. I think it adds a nice touch to it.



Then I added the sleeves and the skirt to it...  Look - we've achieved a semi-functioning wedding gown!



I kept looking at the sleeves and thinking that it needed something to make them look finished...  I was right - TRIM!



How you know you have true friends - when you're allowed to turn them into dress mannequins to help you out. You can see a close-up of the neckline trim that I put on by hand...



My dear friend, posing as my mannequin, to show how lovely the gown looks once it's done...



The back of the gown, mostly finished...  The last two things I did on the gown was to take the same trim I put on the sleeves, and put it down on either side of the back, and lace it up - no zippers, and a much better way to fit things, in my opinion.



I also wasn't sure whether the bride had anything to wear around her neck...  So, I made a choker for her from some old velvet cream ribbon I had, and some more of the trim I had laying around...



I also made a drawstring pouch for the bride, which I haven't told them about. It's of the insert material, and has scrap fabric from the dress, as well as the rest of the trim. That way, should she wish to, she can make a memory book with it.

So, the total cost? $70 to complete it. And it was done in 7 days...  Would have been done sooner, but I also work...  Sooo...  yeah...

Enjoy!

~M

My friend decided that since she was working full time AND going to school full time, she needed someone to sew for her. Since I have been in need of extra stuff to do, I offered...

Here's part of the outfit I'm making for her. It works on its own as a capelet. It will eventually be paired with a 15c French surcoat in the same fabric.

Enjoy!







And the coat...  This is pre-trim...  I will get a better picture with her fully in garb asap.











And the capelet with surcoat together.

Oooo   to inspire someone . . .  wow.  I cannot think of a better compliment!!!   I look forward to seeing your spin on the idea.

I have to find a backing that will work for it...  But once it's actually completed, I'll have it up there. :-)

~M

You totally inspired me with this quilt. :-D I dug into my bin and found a stack of fat quarters and went to work...  I'll be posting my finished quilt hopefully next week.

Thank you for sharing!

~M