My Weekend so Far

Absolutely no progress has been made yet this weekend on the shift dress. I was out all day yesterday with the family. I did manage to pick up the new issue of Sew Beautiful, and I made a quick stop at Hancock Fabrics so I guess you could say I did some sewing related things yesterday. I planned to maybe get some dressmaking fabrics at Hancock's, but my two youngest sons were with me, so I ended up buying for them instead:

The frog fabric will be a pillowcase for DS#4, Bryan, the frog and toad lover. The sheep will be a pillowcase for DS#3, Brendan. He has always been interested in farm animals, especially sheep. When he was younger he had an impressive stuffed sheep collection. Now he raises real ones. He really liked this fabric (it is really cute) but he was worried that it's a little bit too juvenile to make him a shirt. So we are going to make a pillowcase instead. The soccerballs in space and the John Deere fabric will be boxers for Brendan. He said that I could post a picture of the fabrics, but that he would not be modelling the finished boxers for my blog.

And now a new feature here on Frogs in a Bucket. I thought I'd share with you some things from Savannah's Closet. We have a lot of dresses and outfits that I've made for Savannah over the last few years that have been outgrown and are hanging in the closet waiting for the day when, hopefully, a granddaughter will want to wear them. I thought it would be fun to post a picture of them from time to time.

This is a simple little angel sleeve bishop dress out of apple green polycotton microcheck. The smocking plate is Pig 'O My Heart, by Mollie Jane Taylor. I wanted to see if I could adapt a picture smocking plate designed for "straight" smocking into a bishop design. I think it turned out pretty well. The back of the dress looks just like the front with two little piggies facing each other amid pink hearts and yellow flowers. Savannah wore this dress a lot for two summers. The great thing about bishops is that because of the way they're constructed, as long as the neck fits and the length is okay, a child can wear it for a long time. The angel sleeve style is really cool and comfortable during hot weather, especially when made with a lightweight fabric like microcheck. And it's easy, too. Because the sleeve edge is finished before it's sewn into the dress, construction after smocking is over in a snap.

Okay, enough blogging. I'm off to sew!