The Christmas Dress

Where do I start with this one?

Well, do you remember I mentioned I was going to sew up this pattern using the middle one of these fabrics from Paris for a Christmas dress for my daughter this year?

She disagreed. Very politely.

So we went on a trip to The Fabric Store. She chose sequins, and then back home she designed a new dress shape for me. I made it. She loved it.

The End.

Of course the full story was a bit more involved than that.

Let's rewind, shall we?

We walked into The Fabric Store looking for a pale pink cotton; something suitable for a dress with pintucks and pleats, buttons and a bow - we had a well-defined goal. But there was so much my daughter liked there, most of it slippery (eg silk chiffon) and non-pink... I was starting to worry - who wants to sew silk chiffon for a last minute Christmas dress? And then at the back of the shop, she found iris flavoured sequins. I wholeheartedly approved. We found a matching lining fabric and bought a metre of each, celebrated with lemonade and coffee, and rushed home.

With the new fabric, the dress design had to change significantly. Miss 7 now envisaged a simple short sleeved, mid-calf length, flowing dress with a slightly flared skirt, and I was sure we must have a pattern for something like it. We browsed a huge pile of old Burda Style magazines and didn't find anything exactly right, but we found a pattern (issue 11/1012, pattern #151, which is a simple pattern for a child's sequinned tunic) we thought might do. And then I got caught up in all the Christmas planning for a couple of days, and suddenly it was Christmas Eve, and my daughter was asking how her Christmas dress was looking...

I quickly traced out the BurdaStyle pattern and compared it to a kids t-shirt pattern I've used before - uh oh, far too boxy and shapeless. So working from the t-shirt pattern, I redrew our dress pattern with a more fitted bodice and shoulders, a rounded neckline, short sleeves, and a flared skirt. I cut out the lining and sewed up shoulder and side seams, and we checked the fit - apparently just right!

Cutting the sequins was not pleasant - the fabric didn't want to lie smoothly on the fold, and my pins had to work around rather than through the sequins, but soon chopped up sequins were flying everywhere.

I didn't want scratchy sequins on the neckline so I decided to use a satin bias binding to join the outer sequinned fabric to the inner lining, and this had the advantage of only minimally changing the size of the "just right" neck opening. To get a decent finish on the neckline I attached the binding on the inside of the dress, then rolled it over and topstitched it from the outside of the dress - I read this tip on Lara's blog when she was sewing up the Ruby top from Tessuti Fabrics, and she explains it a lot more clearly over there!

I did the same on the sleeve openings, but as you can see, my sequinned sleeves were longer than my lining sleeves, so there's a puff in the sleeve that shouldn't be there. It doesn't seem to bother my daughter so I'm not worrying about it either. 

A last big lot of satin bias binding was sewn to the sequinned fabric hem (the lining is hemmed separately, about 2 inches shorter), and the relative stiffness of the binding helps the skirt flare outwards rather than just flowing downwards.


Fabric: 1 metre of sequins ($18) + 1 metre of lining ($12) - $20 Christmas discount = $10
Notions: a couple of metres of dark blue satin bias binding from my stash = ??? + a reel of thread = between $5 and $15 I guess?
Pattern: Re-use of a previously used Burda pattern combined with basic sketching = $0

Total: $15 - $25 ??


Sewing this dress was surprisingly easy. I'd read a lot of articles and blog posts about sewing sequins (removing sequins from the SA, tying off the sequin threads, wearing protective glasses to shield eyes from flying sequins and broken needles, reattaching sequins after sewing seams - OMG, too much!) BUT I have sewn with sequinned fabric before (silk chiffon trimmed with decorative mini sequins, for a dress for my daughter earlier this year) and I knew my machine could sew right through small sequins. On the recommendation of staff at The Fabric Store I used a new size 75 stretch needle and a regular foot, and my machine sewed right through the bigger sequins without fuss.  The fabric did move about a lot as I sewed, but this was controllable with lots of pins and a slow stitch speed. I'm not sure if this helped, but I also kept my sequins either face to face with another lot of sequins (eg sewing front to back) or facing down into the sewing machine plate with lining fabric upppermost.  I trimmed the underarm seams where the layers of sequins felt too bulky through the lining fabric, but that's all the finishing I did as the sequins are attached to a mesh fabric that I don't expect to unravel at all, and the threads holding the sequins on the outside of the dress should be effectively tied off by the machine stitched seams and bias binding.

I'm now taking orders for sequinned dresses from relatives and friends for next Christmas :).

If you celebrated Christmas, I hope your day was enjoyable and relaxing, and that any gifts you made were well received...


See you soon


Gabrielle x

Striped Long Sleeve Top: Burda 7066

We got back from our big (more than 6 weeks!) European vacation a few weeks ago, and as those of you who sew can imagine, the urge to sew after being away for that long was very, very strong, even eclipsing my need for sleep. In the first couple of jetlagged days back in Sydney I started 4 new projects - mostly patterns I'd tested before, nothing too tricky - so instead of telling you about what we did in the South of France and Italy, I hope you don't mind if I share my first post-Europe garment.  I know it's very simple:

UpSewLate: Front view, Burda 7066 long sleeved top

Fabric
You probably recognise the fabric - so many Australian sewing bloggers have sewn something with it this year, and many non-bloggers must have too! It's the Jaywalk stretch from Tessuti fabrics; it was on sale in two colourways leading up to this year's Tessuti awards so I bought several metres of each - and I still have some left of both. This fabric is rather stretchy with great recovery and nice drape, but it's quite a heavy fabric. I originally made a dress from the other colourway to enter in the awards, but honestly the fabric is better suited to a top like this or even PJ leggings as I made for my daughter.

Pattern
I used a Burda pattern (BurdaStyle 7066) that I'd picked up on sale at Lincraft a few months ago (seriously, why do I keep buying patterns? I'll never be able to get to them all!).  This pattern is described as an Easy (yes, it is) semi-fitted shirt and dress with broad shoulders, and the pattern illustrations show it to have bust darts, a centre back seam, a choice of round or V-neckline, a choice of sleeve and shirt lengths, and an optional very basic fabric belt. The recommended fabric is jersey, and I don't think this pattern would work in a woven fabric because of the way it's designed to fit (see below).

My timing is a bit off with making a long sleeved top - we arrived back in Sydney to unseasonally cold weather, but the weather quickly changed to summer heat, so I may not get much use out of this top till next year.  Anyway, no matter; I don't have many long sleeved tops that feel like they fit anywhere near well, so I'm sure I'll appreciate this one when the weather cools down again!

UpSewLate: Another view, Burda 7066 long sleeved top

Fitting
I made more effort than usual in fitting this one - there was even an ugly muslin* - and I was very glad to have made a muslin because even though this is an easy sew, there were a few surprises in the pattern. The pattern has dropped shoulders, which weren't apparent to me in the photos and technical drawings, and the sleeves are really tight compared to the fit through the body.  I know this style of top - loose with dropped shoulders and skin tight sleeves - is a bit of a "look", but it's not one I like on myself.  I think dropped shoulders make my narrow shoulders look even smaller, and skin tight sleeves just don't feel good. Needless to say I made a few changes before sewing this up in my Jaywalk fabric.

UpSewLate: Burda 7066 with shoulder fit adjusted

* I say "ugly muslin", but the sewing was decent and in fact, that top fits and apparently looks fine on my mum! She now has both the muslin and the pattern (good luck with it, mum!). Here's what the muslin was like on me - great colour but UGH - weird shoulders, pulling under the arms to the bust, and too-tight sleeves:

UpSewLate: Loved the colour but the fabric and fit were off on this top

Pattern Adjustments
I took an inch out of each shoulder, and took in the body. To do this I translated the arm scye an inch inwards - you could do this by folding out width in the paper pattern, but I just redrew the lines. The shape of the new arm scye is unchanged, but the shoulder seams are now closer to my actual shoulder line, and the body has a closer fit. I also let out the sleeve seams - I sewed these with a 0.5 cm instead of 1.5 cm seam allowance, and graduated out to the 1.5 seam allowance in the body around the bustline.  I'm happy with this fit on my arms and body (apart from the bust darts - they're a bit low on me and I forgot to adjust them upwards!), but I'm still not 100% sure about the shoulders.

UpSewLate: Oh yes, there's that waist - I knew it was there somewhere!

The back view shows some excess fabric so perhaps I am one of the millions that needs a sway back adjustment:

UpSewLate: Back view, Burda 7066 long sleeved top

I made a couple more changed that were less about fit: I lengthened the arms, shortened the body, and removed the CB seam. I made the neckline facing from a different plain black jersey because I was in such a rush to sew that really couldn't be a#$%ed with stripe matching - and you can see clear evidence of that uncharacteristic attitude in the side seams too!

UpSewLate: For once I didn't worry about matching my stripes

Phew! I guess I'm now officially back in blogging mode now!


See you soon
- Gabrielle xx


Oh and a postscript... I mentioned while I was away that I was having trouble commenting on people's blogs due to a login issue, and I'm still having that problem on my mobile phone (which is the medium I use for reading blogs these days). I've been able to comment on a few Disqus-enabled blogs and blogs that accept unauthenticated comments, but otherwise it's been a challenge I haven't managed to conquer. I'm working on it!

Rashie 1

We went to the beach a few times over Christmas, and I usually relied on my trusty one-piece.

One afternoon, about to hit the beach, I put on my trusty one-piece, and found it was itchy. It must have had sand in it! Alternative? My mismatched bikini, hot pink florals on top and wild orange florals on bottom :). BUT I have a mummy tummy, and I didn't want to flaunt it. Easy solution, I thought - add a t-shirt! So I did. But that afternoon, as I got wetter I got heavier. My t-shirt dragged and flopped uncomfortably in the waves, and out of the sea stayed sodden. Enviously I stared at another woman's cute rashie top - loud florals with contrasting black panels - it looked comfortable and cute.

I went to my nearest department store for inspiration, and was not inspired: the rash tops were conservative and expensive. And then I searched for rash tops on the sewing blogosphere. I didn't find much, but what I found convinced me a rash top would be an easy make.

Enter Rashie 1:)

Rashie 1 nearly succeeds - it meets the comfort criterion, but I'm unconvinced about the cute criterion. Rashie 1 is a wearable muslin:

I wore it to the pool recently to test its performance; here it is after a swim:

Sorry about the photos - not very crisp or interesting, I know, but the kids weren't in the mood for photo-taking and I wasn't in the mood for posing in front of lots of strangers. I do love the backdrop though - filed away ages ago without much thought about the multiplicative embarrassment of swimwear in public, no war paint, wet hair, and thighs!

Although the top looked and felt like a snug fit when dry, in the water it stretched a bit - you can see some looseness all over in the photo above, but the looseness at hip level is what I really noticed in the water. In fact, I think it needs to be taken down a size all over to achieve the snug fit I wanted.  I probably should have realised it was too big as compared against the bikini bottoms (which are snug) - see how much wider the top is in the photo below? Mind you, this is another wet photo, and since the bottoms are fully lined and their waist stabilised with a frill :) they didn't stretch as much in the water:

The fabric is a pretty amazing match for my RTW wild orange floral bikini bottoms, isn't it! Just a cheapo from Lincraft, so perhaps it's a knockoff:

Only a fellow sewist would venture this far into the blog post, so here are a few more pics of the rash top on.  This is the best back view I have, but I don't think you can really see the main design change I made to the original pattern - omitting the centre back seam and invisible zip.  I can't imagine using an invisible zip in swimwear!

And just one more - yes, I really do need to take it in:

Now for the Sewing Info

I couldn't find a rashie pattern per se, but I found a pattern I could work with: BurdaStyle pattern 120 06/2011. It's a pattern for a fitted t-shirt with a high neckline and short sleeves, as well as centre back seam with an invisible zip.  

I cut out the pattern in a size 38, with about 3cm extra length and with both back and front cut on the fold - I ignored the pattern's centre back seam. On sewing front and back together at shoulder seams and trying it on, I found that the armscyes were too low for the fit you want with a rashie, so I took in the shoulder seam by about 1.5 cm to raise the armscye. This also lifted the neckline - fine because a rashie is supposed to cover you all the way up to your neck. The sleeves then had too much fabric to fit well so I just did a quick and dirty removal of (3+cm) excess fabric from the sleeve cap before serging the edges:  

The sleeves look fine in the end... instead of using a twin needle straight stitch for hems (as I'd usually do with swimwear or knits), I finished the hems with a three-step zig-zag. I think I recall Katherine using this finish on some of her swimwear ages ago:

And although rashie tops usually have a short funnel neck to protect the lowest part of your neck, I decided to try something different. Using the sewn top as a guide I cut out 7cm wide facings, top sewn again with a three-step zig-zag: 

And that's all!

If you need a rashie for yourself, it's a really easy make - go on!


See you soon



- Gabrielle x

Under the Influence...

I made a couple of sporty-looking tops!

First up is the blue version: blue merino with cream and orange merino bands on the front. This lot of concrete and tiles are in an alley opening near my office...

I really like this mixture of sporty / casual, matte fabric with a work / evening, shiny fabric :) - whether or not it's office appropriate is another question.

Incidentally, this is exactly the same fabric as used for my son's skiing layer top, and it's not itchy. 

 

And then there was this orange and cream merino version, easier to make with a vertical band, but made in more of a rush and super late at night so that the hem and top stitching are a bit disappointing (WARNING: No top stitching after midnight!). This time the concrete and tiles belong to the Sydney Opera House.

Two coordinating tops, just in case I discover a long lost twin or something crazy like that.  I can't really wear them together!

 Both  tops were made using Burda 02/2011, pattern #106, in a more fitted size than I usually wear (ie one size down).  I sewed separate bands around the wrists and neckline for the blue version, but the orange version just uses foldover + twin needle stitched hems. Both were stabilised with clear elastic at the neckline and shoulder seams, and the wrists on the blue version also got clear elastic. The bands definitely look neater than the foldover style of hems, and the elastic in the wrists of the blue top seem to be working really well in preventing the opening from flaring out.





Back in May when I sewed these tops there was lots of subliminal sport floating around.  Mr UpSewLate was watching the Giro d'Italia late at night. My kids were watching and dancing along with Lazytown. I became obsessed with the idea of tight long sleeved tops with wide contrast bands - and it didn't click that I'd been influenced till Maria asked!

 

photos from here and here



I'm currently finishing a cute little summery jacket and am contemplating a silky summer dress to go with it. My house is FREEZING cold though, and my hands feel like icicles; I don't know why I'm making summer clothes - I should be making mittens! Brrr

see you soon

Gabrielle x

What is Sewing Success?

How do you define a sewing success?

Exhibit 1. 
This top was made from fabric selected by my 5 year old daughter as a birthday treat and then sewn into a top (as requested) within a week of purchase, with instructions for "no ironing!" followed strictly. The fabric is from Tessuti Fabrics, and the pattern is # 151 from BurdaStyle issue 11/2010 (also made in textured Japanese cotton for summer here and in riotous winter colour here) with the gathered raised waist turned into pleats and centre back zip omitted. The bodice is lined in a soft lyocell fabric for comfort, and the whole thing sparkles and shimmers beautifully in the sunlight.

But this is a top that will not be worn because the style is wrong. Apparently 5 year olds wear tight stretchy tops; looseness is for dresses and little girls.  So that's a fail.


What about this?

Exhibit 2. 
This is a top made for Mr Upsewlate to test out a pattern I put together based on one of his favourite long sleeve t-shirts. The fabric is cheap stuff from Lincraft (and I've used it before for a quick & dirty top for myself) but soft and cottony with a nice weight. Remarkably for a cheap fabric the stripes run pretty straight (and have been matched on side seams, sleeve seams, shoulder seams as much as possible - of course). The neckband and sleeve bands are made from a coordinating rib knit.

You'd think that basing the shape on an old favourite would be smart...hmm. Apparently this top fits better than the original (now you tell me!) and feels comfortable on, but obviously the shoulders are way too broad and the sleeves are also too wide and too long. I think this will get worn but I will always be conscious of those ridiculous shoulders, so this is a fail too.

And this?

Exhibit 3.
What can I say... I think you know the answer already. I hate it on me! I do like the neckline and the shoulders / sleeves but that's it.

This fabric was an interesting remnant from Tessuti fabrics that I held onto for ages because it didn't really seem to be my style - I don't like brown and I don't wear 70s. The pattern started with the top from Vogue 1310, the recent Chado Ralph Rucci pattern, which I turned into a dress (and obviously it's not cut on the bias). I made this dress as a tester for a planned winter dress which I am now very unsure about.

It's better on my dress dummy, and the zig zags are reasonably symmetric and reasonably matched on the side seams, and the neckline and shoulders are properly stabilised with clear elastic, and the self-fabric lining matches pretty well on the zig zags too - but all that doesn't make me want to wear it. Another fail.



*********************************

So I think for me sewing success is about wearability - part and parcel of that is whether it's been sewn neatly, whether the fit is decent, and whether the fabric / colours / style look good on. I don't require my sewing to look perfect on the inside so long as the imperfections aren't evident to my eye from the outside of the garment, but I don't think I'd be happy wearing noticeably wavy hems or puckered seams - I don't want people to know from 50 paces that what I'm wearing is homemade.  I don't require immaculate fit because I haven't had much experience of it to date, but I expect to get more picky as I become a better seamstress.


I see that the success / fail metric varies a lot across the sewing blogs. Some of us are happy to make something we can wear, but others are really tough on themselves.  Do you think some seamstresses are seeing errors that the rest of us don't even notice??? [That's my hypothesis....] And what about finish? Should RTW be the yardstick for garment finish, or should we be aiming for couture perfection?  I haven't ever seen couture IRL, but my David Coffin trousers book shows there can be couture seams with no finishing - so how does that reconcile with my serger ownership aspirations? Can I still justify one?

Draped Jersey Top

As it turns out, draping is not as easy as it looks. At least not for me, at least not with drapey, stretchy jersey!

This simple looking jersey top is the result of my Saturday afternoon AND evening :-)- and the skirt is of course V1282 again.

This colour is pretty accurate - the top is a deep, purplish blue

The underlying top is a simple BurdaStyle one (2/2009-108, but I don't recall what size my tracing is), and my challenge was that simple looking drape crossing my body. Simple, simple, simple - not.

A lighter photo...

The top is made from two remnant pieces of a soft, inviting viscose/elastane fabric from Tessuti Fabrics.  Very pleasant to wear but uncooperative with my sewing machine - even with walking foot, the right stretch needle, and adjusted tension. I don't think you can see the grief it gave me so let's move on.

A close-up showing the pleats and drape

Yes, I'm smiling - my top isn't exactly as I initially envisaged, but I really like it. To be completely honest, the final (quite imperfect) drape positioning on my body is better than my original idea (which emphasised my waist quite spitefully) - but I did so much pinning, trying on and repinning that the adjusted version really should be an improvement!

In case you're interested, here's how I did it. If you are a whizz at draping you're welcome to have a giggle so long as you leave me some top tips in the comments box!


The Mechanics
Well, I started this top by cutting out a BurdaStyle fitted long sleeve t-shirt, one which I've made several times before*. I cut out so as to leave as big a single piece of unused fabric as possible for draping - this ended being roughly a square shape.  From this square shape I cut out the RHS front arm hole, side seam and shoulder slope (extended out at the same angle until I hit the top edge of my drape fabric) to match the RHS shape of the base top.

* The idea was to start with something that fitted me, but I forgot that I always adjust the sizing of this top a lot (I need it to be more pearish) when I make it. 

Next up I pinned all the bodice pieces together on my dress form - first the base front and back, then the RHS shoulder seam for the extra piece to be draped.  As I pinned the shoulder seam I pinned in place some pleats that I thought might work, with a deep fold of fabric to hopefully stop the drape from flipping open:

1.

I roughly pinned together the side seams and RHS armhole, to be basted together before sewing the top:

2.

and fiddled with the drape for ages before pinning it into the LHS waist area where it would meet up again with the base top and get sewn in (and trimmed):

3.

Lots of excess fabric, but this was the idea - pleats on the side seam:

4.

I then tried it on full of pins. The drape shown above didn't look good at all, so I played around with the angle of the drape and where on the LHS seam it landed. When I was happy with how the drape placement looked - landing a lot lower on my body - I sewed the draped pleats to the base top at the shoulder seam, then sewed the RHS armhole and side together (as pinned in photo 2 above).

Danger Zone
Next up I sewed together shoulder seams, then sewed in the RHS sleeve, then the RHS sleeve seam and RHS side seam. I tried it on again but the weight of the drape made it hard to tell if anything was changing with the fit - however, with a sleeve in place it was now obviousthat the base top didn't fit very well on the shoulders and upper bust. Grrr. Oh, and the arm scye was way too big and the sleeves baggy and saggy.

The thing is that my dress form doesn't have my shape, even when I manage to set all the dials to the right numbers. Her shoulders are much wider than mine, and somehow her posture is better or something so that she never gets fabric pooling in her upper bust area. And on a top with drapery hanging off the shoulder, you need to know your shoulder!

Resolution
After a lot of mucking around and hypothesising about seams I could take in, the despairing thought "if only I could make my shoulders bigger" was met with a brainwave: shoulder pads!

I sewed up the rest of the top with the shoulder pads pinned in place, and the drape got healthier. I took the upper side seams and upper sleeve seams in, then again, and then again, and finally that fitting problem looked to be resolved.

One problem remains: my shoulder pads are not adequately supported by actual shoulders, and this makes the outermost pleat collapse somewhat:

Lessons 
A TNT pattern is one that fits; the BurdaStyle top needs some work before it can become one. [Note to self: narrow the shoulders and upper bodice, widen the waist!]
 
Draping on the dress form assumes your dress form reflects your form.  Draping on the person might be quicker and more reliable but needs a sewing friend because the pinning can be tricky with only 2 arms.


My dress form is not very pear-shaped. How can I make her shoulders smaller like mine???? 

Finally, some questions for you if you've read this far!

1. Have you ever tried draping with knits? 
2. Do you think you know how to do it? 
3. If  you answered 'Yes' to 1) or 2), can you give me any tips or suggest any resources?

M-M-M'12 Days 2-5

My new remote control is not coping with more than a tiny distance - but luckily I've found some great photo helpers for MMM to date.

On Wednesday (day 2) after a coffee & stats meeting my colleague Ken was happy to help, and even made useful suggestions about where to stand in relation to the sun. I forgot to tell him how to focus the camera, but he did a fine job anyway and said he could help on other days too. Aww thanks Ken!

This is my new Vogue skirt - the skirt feels very comfortable although it feels as though there may be some puffing out in the backside, so perhaps it's supposed to be tighter or perhaps my fabric has relaxed. I'm wearing this pretty much exactly as when I first showed it to you - not very imaginative, I know!


On Thursday (day 3) my colleague Marylene came out for a lunchtime walk, even though I explained it was going to be a "photo" walk. She was glad to help too! She was very aware of the light, she showed a great eye for locations, and she managed to take fantastic pictures that didn't need any cropping, unlike mine.  

There are several of these big rocks in a group - I really like this sculpture.  

Marylene's photos are better than my originals for this jacket - V - and I think she's made it look as good as it feels. The dress (V ) has been a bit of a corporate workhorse; I wear it year round and I suppose it's getting a bit tired. Might have to remake it one of these days!


On Friday (day 4), a really busy day in our team, Marylene again agreed to come out for a photo walk. When I told her how much I loved her photos from yesterday she showed me a few other photos on her mobile - a beautifully framed photo of a friend in her bridal dance, and a perfect sunset. Talk about hidden talents!


My loud and cheerful self-drafted kimono sleeve t-shirt - which I can now see is significantly too big - looked like it should be snapped alongside the colourful toilet doors at Barangaroo (which we'd spotted on our Thursday walk).

 

Unfortunately I hadn't yet read about the Friday photo themes, but I'm thinking to take part in the rest of them... for the record, if I'd known I should have been thinking food not toilet doors :-)


Yesterday (day 5) my son helped out, taking snaps after a soccer match in which he played his heart out. His team lost but played well - their third loss in a row, but their skills are improving and they are no doubt learning more from losing than they would from winning.

A friend told me that evening that I'm the sort of person who's never prepared to make myself look ridiculous - I think she's wrong, and to prove the point here are some ridiculous photos for the day:

This is an old kimono sleeve t-shirt, self-drafted using very a nice jersey from Tessuti Fabrics.  Evidently I have done nothing to these photos at all.... and I probably need to give my son a few more photography top tips - or even introduce him to Marylene.



My daughter has also been doing her bit towards my MMM'12 commitment. Here she is on day 2, having a hilarious time losing a sandal:

wearing a summery Burdastyle dress (originally blogged here) and an unblogged hoodie originally made for her big brother from Burda paper pattern 9614 (similar hoodie in pink blogged here).

On day 3 she chose a me-made t-shirt dress which I can't wait for her to grow out of because it's just embarrassing to think I made it (pale pink with green, yellow and blue naive flowers, and a terrible 80s pattern). I won't show you a photo of that one.

- SKIP - 


But she kept up the effort on day 4, playing at the park:

here she's wearing a me made long sleeve t-shirt (I think from a Burda paper pattern) to which I added ruffles, + a necklace she made herself.



Ken, Marylene and my son don't read this blog, but one day they may, so I am hereby recording my appreciation.  And thinking about the next 25 or so favours I'll be needing this month :-)