Freestyle

Saturday I sewed.
When DRL and  I went to Austin in December I picked up some fabric
at my favorite Austin fabric boutique, The Stitch Lab.
I had a half yard of quilter's linen in this great deep indigo color and it happened
to coordinate perfectly with the Erin McMorris' Summersault print I acquired on my trip.
The problem: I only had a half yard of that, too.

Oliver+S makes my favorite children's clothing patterns.
Almost everything I've sewn for my girls has been from one of Liesl's great patterns.
But they all require at least one yard of the "main fabric" for dressmaking.
I found myself on the horns of a dilemma.

I wanted to make Stella a dress.
I wanted to use these two fabrics.
I had no pattern.

Crap.

Except not!
I found a Gap dress in Stella's closet,
a hand-me-down from Elena,
that seemed exactly perfect.
I traced the body, adding extra width for the placket,
and a half inch all around for the seam allowance.
I relied heavily on the skills I learned making Liesl's patterns:
Sewing a placket,
adding a sleeve,
basting,
pleating,
hemming.
And I winged it.
I freestyled Stella a dress.

It's not perfect.
It doesn't lay flat in the front.
I accidentally cut the bottom (left) back piece.
I had to applique a patch there (I only had a 1/2 yard. I couldn't cut a new piece).
The pleat is slightly off-center in the front (It's spot on in the back!)

But I'm crazy happy with how it turned out.
Stella looks amazing in it.

Here's to trying new things.
To being brave and throwing the "you can't, no way" out the window.
Because the only thing worse than completely screwing it up,
would be to never have tried in the first place.

Cheers,
A