A Dress for Miss Lily

I've moved on! All fur work is done on the vest. The plackets and snaps are installed. All that remains is to fell the lining armscye to the fur armscye. The vest is too bulky to do any of the traditional vest/lining turnings. So I sewed the neckline edge and the hem edge by machine. I then turned the vest inside out with room to spare. Next was the placket and snaps. So all that remained was the armscye closing to put this baby to bed. I hope to finish that handwork by tomorrow. If mother nature cooperates will get some good wintry shots of the vest outside. I'll also review all my aggravation. Oh, the good news is that DH and I were in Lake Placid yesterday snoop shopping and there was a vest just like mine, NOT REAL FUR, for 485.00! I made sure he saw that price tag!

I have now moved on to Miss Lily's outfit. There were two trips for fabric as well as 4 fabrics purchased for the project. I am using none of them. They just didn't seem right for the type of garment I wanted to gift her. I decided to go a very traditional route. That means I will be using from stash a handkerchief linen for the dress. It will be a smocked bishop with a full length CB opening, the easier to dress baby. The smocking will be a pale yellow, maybe variegated, not sure with some yellow rose bullions and pale green leaves. To go with this there will be a little soft yellow matelasse jacket with more bullions embroidered on it. In the pic above I am tracing off the pattern from Australian Smocking and Embroidery. I was horrified to discover I had no Pattern Ease. I like to buy this by the bolt at 50% off so it will be a wait. In the meantime, I used good old dressmaker's carbon and the back side of leftover Christmas wrap. Worked great! Now I am finally excited about this project and feeling good about my choices. I hope to whip this one out quickly.

Last week at Joanns I purchased a really nice soft green "linen and linen blends" whatever the heck that is. It certainly looks like linen to me but has a lovely drape and doesn't totally crush. So I am thinking there is some rayon in there, definitely not a poly. I have plenty, 3 yards of 60 in. width. I also purchased a rayon poly chiffon in a soft green and yellow and black plaid that coordinates beautifully. So I am on the prowl to put something together for the summer with these two. I will try to get a picture up of them soon.

For now, I hope you like this picture. DH and I snuck into, driving past the no trespassing signs, the Olympic ski jump at Lake Placid. No one was around so we had the place to ourselves. Here is a pic taken from the judging stand which is midway on the jump. This is the view looking down. Kind of makes me want to throw up!