WAY out of the comfort zone

Wow, I knew it had been a long time since I'd posted something here, but I didn't realize that it's been close to three weeks! I guess consecutive bouts of chicken pox will do that. There's another reason why I haven't posted though. I tackled a project that was way out of my comfort zone. This doesn't have to do with scrapping or stamping, but it does have to do with the craft of sewing.

Let me preface this by saying that I DON'T SEW! LOL! About three weeks ago, I took my girls to a shop that was supposed to carry the white dresses that they need for special days at school. The shop had one dress. ONE! It was also one that neither of the girls would wear, and I really couldn't blame them. So okay, I've tried regular stores for these dresses and have never been successful, not to mention that this isn't the time of year to find white dresses in stores anyway. My fallback plan has always been my Mom, who CAN sew and who has made dresses for the girls before. Minor detail--my Mom is not at home as she's helping my sister with her baby. That was out. Finding a seamstress was one more option, but time was already short. In desperation, I looked at the school's list of approved patterns for dresses. Hm, some of them actually say the word, 'easy', on them. Another one says, 'less than 2 hours'. I could already feel the nuts and bolts coming loose in my head. Soon I was talking myself into tackling this project myself. Never mind that I DON'T SEW!

How hard can this be? You buy the pattern. It tells you how much fabric you need and all that, so you can buy that, too. You lay out the pattern on the fabric, cut out the pieces, sew 'em together. Sounds simple, right? Sure! I made sure that there were no buttons, no zippers, no weirdness of any kind on the dress. Should be just simple piecing together. I'd just ignore the fact that blood from needlesticks on white fabric could be a pain, in more ways than one. I mean, I don't think that I need to assume that I have to stick myself EVERY time that I use a needle, eh?

The girls' bouts of chicken pox ended up being timely. I was forced to stay home, which gave me LOTS of time to work on these dresses. They need them this Friday. I finished them today. Yes, I actually did manage to pull this off. No bleeding or anything! And yes, I finished with time to spare, despite the fact that I don't sew. My sewing machine has been used to put Girl Scout patches on vests and sashes. It's been used once or twice for crafting. I can now say that I've made actual clothes and they turned out okay! Even my girls pronounced them fit to wear! I'll just add in here that crafting did come in handy. I found some fun lace/sequin appliques to put on the dresses. Hooray for the craft iron and fusible webbing!

Here are the dresses....
Whew! Now that that crazy project is behind me, I can get back to what I really enjoy doing--stamping!