Last Minute Sewing {Needle and thREAD}

I've been doing a bit of mandatory sewing over the last few weeks and thought I'd pop in with a late night update.  It seems kind of silly to throw up a post like this, but perhaps you are like me and enjoy reading sewing ramblings of all sorts...

Disclaimer -- this is neither my husband nor his pants.  (Source)

First off, I hate to have to tell you this, but I didn't take a single picture to document the bang-up job I did of hemming a new pair of dress pants for my husband.  You would have been impressed... er...yeah, I know...so boring it never occurred to me to pull out the camera.  But I do have something to say about the necessity to hem new pants!  For all of the rigmarole we go through to find slim fit 33x32s, you'd think those darn manufacturers could be a bit more considerate and consistent on the length per fit factor.  Or at least provide us with a chart detailing the changes in size necessary to account for the differences between "relaxed" "classic" and "slim."  Sheeeesh.  I got other things to do, people, than hem pants that I went out of my way to find in the right length!

Other things such as make ivory sashes for seriously cute flower girl dresses!  Now I'll try not to spoil any wedding-day-unveilings with too many pictures, but here's a sneak peek:

Let's hope little Miss Shy walks down the aisle, shall we?

Both of my little girls needed sashes.  I purchase the dresses online and the color was a bit lighter than we wanted so we chose to make slightly darker sashes to compensate.  Honestly, I think the two-tone effect will be even better than a perfect match.

The wedding is next week so don't you worry.  NO DOUBT you will be inundated with more pictures of pretty girls (of all ages) in the very near future.

Speaking of that wedding next week, I'm in the process of making myself that dress I've been talking about around here.

It's a little assymetrical ditty with a bit of sheer organza on one side and cotton bed sheeting on the other. 300 count! I'm going for the deconstructed look -- you know, half sewn right-side-out and half sewn wrong-side-out?  Sharp lines, juxtaposition, and all that.

Just kidding.  That was just a picture of a mock-up of the bodice I threw together to check the fit. 

Believe it or not the real thing is 2/3rds of the way finished.  I'd post pictures to prove progress, because I'm dedicated to you like that, but these (next seven) days I'm mostly focused on getting the darn thing done in time.  Wouldn't you know I ended up in crutches last week after I cut my foot and it put a wee kink in my plans for...everything. Let me tell you, sewing and fitting a dress one-legged is quite the adventure!  I cut everything on the floor (crawling around on the ground is a new specialty of mine) which I probably would have done anyway, and I've put the ironing board down to sitting level so that I can go from machine to board with ease, but still, it's a bit more challenging than I'd prefer on a tight schedule and I'm sacrificing that thing called quality for that even more important thing called completion.  So, if you happen to see me at the wedding, please be a dear and tell me the dress looks absolutely splendid even if it appears to be dragging in the front and too tight on one side and you see a bit of duck tape holding the zipper together.

Wow, this post is getting a bit wordy.   I think a gratuitous ultrasound picture might be in order.

Watch out world, we're having another girl!

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Sewing and hobbling aside, I've been working through an older book called Through the Valley of the Kwai by Ernest Gordon which I plucked off a shelf at my parent's house.

Ernest Gordon was a Scottish prisoner of war during WWII and took part in building the railroad that crossed the river Kwai.  In his words, the popular book and movie "The Bridge Over the River Kwai" was a pleasant fiction.  Gordon's story is mainly about the spiritual transformation that he and his fellow prisoners experienced as a community.  With the explicit way things tend to be written now, I definitely appreciated that he didn't dwell on the tortures inflicted by the Japanese as much as he focused on the prisoners and their response to unthinkable difficulty.  Good, good, good.

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Head on over to In the Heart of My Home for more needle and thREAD!