Monday, January 25, 2010

Knitting (& Sewing)at a distance

On Friday I sent off the two waistcoats to the granddaughters, and the two hats to Dear Son #1. I've promised him a scarf to go with the hat, but am waiting to hear if either hat actually looks good with his jacket. It's a bit hard to knit a set that will look good with a jacket I've never seen!

I've had experience sewing for our two daughters and our oldest granddaughter when they were far away. I managed that by making samples of the patterns and adjusting from there.

The first one I did was our younger daughter's wedding dress. That time I bought a pattern, made a dress and sent it to her. It wasn't suitable, so I bought another pattern and made another dress, which turned out well, and would work with a few adjustments. Then I started on the wedding dress, which was an interesting combination: a plain, short sleeved sheath, ending above the knees, combined with an overskirt that was about 12" long at the waist front, and cascaded down to a little bit of a train in the back. The overskirt was lined with gold lame and the sheath had gold embroidery around the scoop neckline. It suited her to a "T".


Then I made a very interesting black satin evening dress for Daugher #1. First I made a bodice of the pattern she had picked (a Vogue pattern that was all on the bias, with not one piece that looked like it was part of a dress pattern). Then I made a sample dress of some deep burgundy polyester satin, completely lined. And, after adjustments to that dress, I made the black satin. We altered the neckline from a halter top to a sleeveless top that came up to a "dog collar". The collar and the wide straps around the back had rhinestone applied to the edges. The back of the dress dipped down to just below the waist. It was smashing!!!





And then for granddaughter #1 I made a Badgley Mischka design (another Vogue pattern) for her grade 8 grad dress. This dress had three layers of 13 pieces. It was a MAJOR project, and required the sample bodice which was used to fit properly. This dress was also beautiful when finished. This picture is also taken from the pattern envelope.






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