I started this blog last year in a last ditch effort when I had to shut down my 2nd website/blog due to the fact that we had zero money to pay for it at the time because we bought that money pit of a house. Yes I know I haven't posted much, but honestly it took every bit of my energy to get our house sold and then moved back into our old home. It's been four months since we closed on the sell of our big house and I honestly feel like I'm finally in a place to where I can start writing again. Even if it's just for myself to journal our family adventures.
I'm still trying to figure out how I want to use this blog. Since I'm not currently on any social media and the only reason I was on social media was to keep a diary of sorts of our family life ~ I'm leaning more towards just keeping this place a just that: a family diary plus adding in a little bit of all the homemaking and homesteading wisdom I've acquired over the past 20 years. Which is why today I'm going to share about some sewing I've been doing.
I've been sewing for 13 years. I started sewing when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter. During that season of life we were wearing modest skirts and dresses full time and I had just started cloth diapering and I was making my own. Sewing those items was much easier and more cost effective than buying. Even though my mom was/is an excellent seamstress I never had the time for all that when I was living at home; so all my sewing skills are self-taught via trial and error and the internet.
While we don't wear skirts and dresses full time anymore (one of those minor things I wish we'd never changed, but going back isn't always as simple as it seems!) I still enjoy sewing a multitude of different things. I don't get to sew as much as I'd prefer. But, when I get an open slot in my schedule to spend some time sewing, I take full advantage.
Lately my sewing pile is getting quite high. Despite having a million other things to do this past Saturday, I decided to camp out in my sewing room and finally get some things sewn. My top priority was finishing a dress for me and a pair of bloomers for my baby girl to go with a dress I recently made.
In a perfect world my goal would be to have a standard go-to dress pattern that I could make five or so to wear every day. A uniform of sorts. I despise getting dressed and buying clothes. I find dresses more comfortable and modest. I have been working on a pattern over the years, combining and altering to try to find that
perfect dress pattern. I am so excited to get the dress finished that I made this Saturday, because it is pretty close to what I have been looking for!!
My main issue in regards to finding a dress pattern is that I don't want my dress to be frumpy, clingy, complicated to make, and it needs to be easy to tweak to add variety. Another MAJOR concern is that it flatters my figure. I find most dresses make me look pregnant even when I'm not 😡 After all I have had 9 babies and while I wear a 4/6 in womens, I carry my weight in my middle. I have NO waist. {{sigh}} Just being honest here, I'm not trying to be vain
really. But it would be nice if my every-day dress didn't accentuate my figure in all the wrong ways.
My new favorite dress!
This is a King's Daughters pattern called the
Ladies Melinda's Dress. I heavily altered it to try to tweak it to my needs. I purchased the pattern from Candle on the Hill. The fabric is from Hobby Lobby and I paid wayyyy too much money for it. But it's fun to splurge every once in a while. I original bought the fabric to make each of my daughters and me a dress for Easter. Sadly, my oldest daughter's dress did not turn out so I scrapped the idea and went another route for our Easter dresses.
Baby girl's new outfit
I made Lydia's dress from Simplicity 5695 and the bloomers from another King's Daughters pattern called the Baby Dress Pack. I would highly recommend sizing up on the Simplicity pattern if you make this cute little dress, it was on the small side.
Not only did my husband help keep the kids occupied while I sewed but he also surprised me with a massive bucket of my favorite treat to help spur me on to finish my sewing projects, lol.
Even though my sewing pile is still a mile high, I'm thrilled to have these projects completed. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can spend some time sewing because I'm 100% looking forward to tackling the next couple items on my sewing docket which includes a couple aprons and another dress for me. So what's on your sewing docket?
With Love & Hope,
Jennifer
