Sunday, May 31, 2009

ruffle-o-matic!

Welcome to RUFFLE ZONE CENTRAL!

For Kate

Kate is equally enthralled by the ruffler foot, and we came close to ruffling up half my stash. Karen, you had the winning "what to do with ruffles" suggestion - here is a sundress with "wings" aka huge ruffles on the sleeves! I also used the ruffler to gather and attach the skirt to the bodice. That task usually takes about 30+ minutes, but this was about 45 seconds in all. WOW.

For Kate

For Kate

I managed to pull off a perfectly enclosed zipper in the back of the dress this time... when it works, that's a thing of beauty. I was feeling brave, so then I stitched in the ditch from the outside to trap the bodice lining down & hold the seam allowances from the bodice and the skirt inside, and that worked well. The sewing gremlins were out to lunch today, I tell you!

Kate's new dress

The fabric for the bodice and the sleeve ruffles is from Sandi Henderson's Farmers Market line. I have some of the apple print as well, to make another sundress with.
Kate's new dress

And while we were modeling dresses, here's the "clown costume dress" shift, aka "lilly pulitzer style sundress" from last weekend. Notice the ruffle she put in her hair? ;-)
Kate's new dress

Kate's new dress

After we were done playing with the ruffler, we did a few hours of work on transplanting more tomatoes and squash. We planted 23 tomato plants (a sheltie ate one... thankfully it was really tiny and we got most of it out of his mouth), butternut squash, zucchini, eggplants, bush beans, arugula, and tons of flowers. 4 hours of sweating away in the sun. Reminded me that I LOVE my carhartts. I want to build pants like those some day, they're built super crazy strong. I buy mine at an outlet near here for about $20/pair, and they're the perfect pants for farming. If you look at the seams, they're triple stitched, reinforced all over, and they use some super tough canvas that's amazing. Good stuff. Then we slacked off and went to Denville Dairy and ate some huge chocolate ice cream cones.

7 comments:

ACorgiHouse said...

Oh cool! I love it! K

Antoinette said...

Cute cute cute! You can really tell when the model loves the clothes and yours do. Lucky for them, they get to take the clothes home every time as payment for their services. :)

verobirdie said...

Cute! This dress is just beautiful!
I've planted my tomatoes two days ago. Pfff, what a hot job it is :-)
Thanks for the comments on the Issey Miyake top.
The design itself is not very intricate, few lines to draw in fact. I usually use Burda carbon paper to mark lines and symbols.

Gail said...

Just stumbled upon your blog. You make lovely things. I particularly like the yellow dress from a while back.

Meg said...

So cute, Wendy. Looks like the adorable dresses you can sometimes find at trendy NYC flea markets, like the Brooklyn Flea. I have ruffler envy.

gwensews said...

Sweet dresses!

Patricia said...

Kate is getting so tall! The dresses look really long now.

BTW- I have shared an "Attitude of Gratitude " award with you. Hope you don't mind.