No more pillowcases

Instead, they've become dresses.

I'm pretty happy with these two.  The motifs on the pillowcases really lent themselves to becoming dresses.

Not as happy with the photography on the bottom dress -- the blue facing doesn't show half as much straight on; for some reason, flash or no flash, it's much more obvious in the picture.  Grr.

The only other "grr" moment -- going through SIX boxes and cans of buttons and not being able to find eight pale blue shirt buttons.  Which I know I have a boatload of, because I used them when I made a shirt for my husband a year or so ago.  (And no, I didn't scavenge the buttons off his shirt, though the thought did occur to me.

These dresses are now available in the shop.

So it's not another tablecloth

But do pillowcases count?  I found these two embroidered pillowcases in deep, family-inherited stash, and (1) I know I'll never use them on my bed, and (2) I just can't wait to cut them up!

I can use the same basic A-line baby dress pattern that I used for the tablecloth dresses (which have all sold!), so that I can feature the heavy embroidered borders of the pillowcases as the front hem.  The back will be solid white with just the edging.  Since the cases are different, I didn't have the moral dilemma of deciding whether or not to put the motif on back and front.  Instead, I'll use matching pale blue buttons and do the buttonholes and topstitching in pale blue thread.  The fabric is pretty opaque, so I might even do the facings in pale blue, if I have something in stash that would work.  And I think that I do.

Because of the width of the pillow cases, these will both be size 1, and will be listed in the shop when they're finished.

Yay for more embroidered linens!

Down Mexico Way

There's a little packrat problem in my house.  I came by it honestly, last in a long line of packrats.  Mario's more minimal, but I think I'm rubbing off.  And our housemate, well, her level of acquisition could qualify her as a blood relative.

We've been trying to clean out a bit recently, and when she came downstairs with a few bags loaded for the thrift store, I naturally had to rummage through them to see what she was getting rid of.  (Needless to say, she was doing the same thing with my boxes).  Turns out she was getting rid of some old linens.

I have a weakness for old linens.  And because I have to choose the most difficult thing to try to make work, the one piece that really called out to me (though I took 4 pieces) was a 1950s-60s era kitschy Mexican-themed tablecloth, square, 4x4, with several spots and a nice tear in it.  But I loved the print and I wanted to try to save it.

I used Simplicity 5204, my TNT blouse pattern - it's a basic shape, doesn't use too much fabric, and it has vertical darts in the front which, as it turned out, could be finagled to lay right over the tear so that I could use the motifs around it.  Somehow, I managed to cut the entire blouse from the tablecloth - I only had to piece the under collar and the very bottom of one of the facings.  I do wish I'd been able to place the motifs a bit better, but again, the fabric limited what I could do.  When I was finished, there weren't enough scraps to make a matching dinner napkin.

Once I got the blouse constructed, I knew I had to go further.  The colors, while still good, were somewhat faded.  I decided to indulge my latest obsession and got out the embroidery floss and outlined the motifs with red, yellow and green stitching.  The final touch - little red buttons that look like candy.

And the result?  It's kitschy - good grief, it's almost choking on its own kitsch - but it makes me smile.  I think it'll be a rainy day top, something when I need a little brightening up.