Dressing the dolls

You can set your calendar by it: the first week of May, my friend Deborah gets stressed out. Why? because she is the director of Arts Alive Studio and the first of May means one month until production time. This year's acting performance is The Hiding Place, which they have done several times before. No need to make an entire set of costumes like last year. This year's clothing crisis is for the ballet, of all things!

The production they are doing this year is based on the children's book The Best Loved Doll. I've never read it, but the basic plot is that a little girl gets invited to a party where all the guests bring their best-loved dolls. The older students are the party guests and the little ballerinas are their dolls.

I don't know if you've ever had the opportunity to look at a dance costume catalog, but they are FULL of amazing costumes of every shape, size and style you can imagine. Unless you are my friends Deborah and the ballet's author/director, Nicole. They had a very specific look in mind that just couldn't be found in any of the catalogs they checked. A sweet, vintage girly look. So they decided to make the costumes.

Deborah, bless her heart, is making pastel leotards and matching skirts for the older girls who are the guests at the party. And based on the sample I saw last week, they are just as nice (if not nicer!) than store-bought ones. The dolls will be wearing dresses in a color that matches their owners' leotard. Deborah had done the rough construction of each of the seven dresses, but needed someone to "fancy them up." Would I be able to help with this?

Heck yeah!

On Friday afternoon, I picked up a bag loaded with pastel loveliness, lace & ribbon and given free reign for embellishing the dresses. Yippee! I culled through my stock of vintage patterns for ideas and have knocked out 3 of the 7 dresses already. Here's a sneak peek of an apron I made for one of the dresses:

Falling off the wagon and climbing back on

Perhaps you've noticed that a week went by without anything new popping up in my store. Perhaps you haven't. Either way, I noticed, and here's the story that I'm sticking to:

I love to sew, and I don't want sewing to become stressful or just something else to squeeze into my very busy day. I don't want to ever feel pressured to make something, and that's how I was feeling last week. I ran into 3 days that were slam-packed with things to do from dawn til dusk (and beyond dusk, I'm usually catching up on recorded TV shows). And then I ran into 2 days of blissful weather where I needed to wind down from the busy week. Then yesterday- slammed again. Today, not so much :o)

I'm happy to say that things *look* like they're calming down a bit in my schedule (but you know how deceptive looks can be...) I actually started working on this dress last week, but between finishing up customer orders and everything else going on, I only got to finish it this morning. Ta da! Lilo's Luau, size 3T (or a top fo a slim 7/8), ready to ship.

I have 2 more Williamsburg costumes to list, one for girls and one for toddlers. I'm still waiting on pictures for those. This weekend, my boys costume was chosen for a treasury highlighting the anniversary of Paul Revere's midnight ride. The treasury has ended, but you can see the link here on Jane's Glorious Hats blog. Thanks, Jane!

Butterfly Feliz

My soon-to-be seven year old is spying over my shoulder as I type the title of this post.

"Fleas?"
"No, honey, it's feliz like in the Christmas song, Feliz Navidad"
"So it's about Christmas?"
"No. Feliz means happy."
(looks disappointed) "Oh"

I guess looking at pictures of my Frosty Anna jumper in that last post got him in the Christmas spirit.






But alas, no Christmas just yet. I did, however, just list my first Feliz dress (fabulous pattern by Studio Tantrum/Fledge) on etsy. I picked up this gorgeous brown butterfly fabric from Michael Miller this summer, and layered it over top of the kiwi green Garden Tour print. This apron jumper is so carefree and fun... why wouldn't it be called "happy"? Especially with ruffles cascading down the back. Love those ruffles! You can find this one ready to ship in size 4/5 at my etsy store, and I'll be listing a custom size one later tonight.