ORANGE you jealous of my retro mod dress??

I missed sewing on my day off last week... kind of.  I missed sewing, but to be honest, I was content with where I was and what I was doing. I was at Alki Beach, 5 minutes from our house (I still can't believe how blessed I am to live in the area that I do) watching Georgia play while thinking of what I'd sew on the next cloudy day.

I've been in the mood for the color ORANGE lately. Such a vibrant, happy, summery color. I ventured to West Seattle Fabric Company a couple of weeks ago and found this retro-looking, mod fabric that I had to have:

I knew that it would be perfect for the vintage 1960's dress pattern I've been wanting to use. And since Saturday turned cool and cloudy, I spent the day making a new dress!  Here is how it turned out...

She's Off to See the Wizard

Finally, after months of worrying if I would mess it up, I got the courage to make Harper's Dorothy costume for her class play. So far, I haven't worried that much about messing up my sewing projects-- the only consequence would be that the items wouldn't be worn out of the house...and at least I will have gotten more sewing practice! But this-- if I messed this up, the entire audience would wonder where I found such a pitiful costume. Plus I want Harper to look just perfect, of course!  I started out with a pattern, but after an hour or so, I tossed it. I'm coming to realize that patterns overwhelm me. They stress me out. They make me confused. So I buried it in the bottom drawer of my sewing table and just winged it by getting lots of dresses out of her closet and taking a stab at how I wanted it to turn out. And I must say that I didn't do too badly-- at least the mistakes are in areas that can be hidden!

She's off to see the wizard!

Click your heels together 3 times and
repeat after me...

Maisy the chihuahua as Toto

Toto, I mean Maisy, trying to escape!

Never a more beautiful Dorothy!

Mad for Mermaids!

Georgia, my 4-year old, has gone mad for mermaids! She loves Ariel and "The Little Mermaid", of course, but she loves stories and songs and poems and pictures of all kinds of mermaids.

And she spends lots of time trying to convince her 6 and 8 year old siblings that mermaids are real.

When I found the "Sea Beauties" fabric by Michael Miller, I knew it was a must have for Georgia. I bought it months ago, but because it looks summery, I thought it would be best to save it for a sundress. However, I just couldn't wait any longer-- as Seattleites know, we are sometimes wearing puffy coats and pom pom hats in June, for goodness sake--so I came up with an alternate plan.

I had some sweaters I found at Value Village for about $1 each and they happened to match the colors in the fabric perfectly. I especially liked how the orange one looked with the fabric. And while I was matching the fabric and sweaters, Harper went to her closet and found an old aqua t-shirt with anchors on it that matched as well:

I messed around with the scissors and fabric and here is what I came up with:

And after an hour and a half of gathering and sewing and hemming, here is what we have-- a bright, cheerful, perfect-for-the-chilly-springs-in-Seattle dress!

And hooray-- Georgia felt like modeling and having her picture taken today!