The Baby Dress

There has been a bevy of babies born here in our small military community this spring so for a while I was pretty busy with baby clothes and accessories. A fellow blogger and friend asked me what kind of baby things I had made and so I thought that might be a good idea for a post.
I give you Olivia's dress:

I made the dress in a few hours with some lovely cotton print from my local over-priced Norwegian craft store. For the pattern I used vintage Simplicity 4507.

The pattern had some lovely features including a scallop shaped sleeve and tiny, tiny little pin tucks.

 

And to finish my seams I used some super soft vintage rayon seam tape that I had stashed away. No rough edges on this baby's skin.

I really loved sewing this dress, and I loved how much the baby's mother loved the dress, but best of all, I REALLY loved how many jaws dropped at the shower when they all asked where I bought it and I said I made it.

Isn't that just the best part of making anything by hand?

And don't forget to check out the pattern pdf giveaway. It end this Saturday!

The Slip That Just Won't Die... Finally.

This poor slip has been waiting half done on my dress form for a couple months now. My mom included it in her last sewing loot care package so that I could make a pattern from it. We both considered it too far gone for anything else.

Until an idea just came out of nowhere. I was looking it over and became aware of just how many times this little slip had been patched and mended. Someone had carefully extended the life of the slip long after most people would have tossed it out. Mom lives in rural Nebraska and finds lots of treasures at farm auctions and thrift shops... I have this picture in my mind of a young farmer's wife saving up to buy a lovely cream satin fabric, sewing the slip from the latest mail order pattern, proudly wearing it, and carefully mending it to make it last several years.

So I posed myself a question, "How far gone does something have to be before it's not worth saving?" And thus, the slip that just won't die was born. 

The points where the straps joined at both front and back were all mended with great triangle patches, some times more than once. There were little patches in the front and back at about hip level that had been mended with little art nouveau rose-shaped patches.