{"id":12272,"date":"2011-04-12T21:56:06","date_gmt":"2011-04-13T01:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/?p=12272"},"modified":"2012-04-19T20:24:45","modified_gmt":"2012-04-20T00:24:45","slug":"ahhh-completed-easter-dress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/12\/ahhh-completed-easter-dress\/","title":{"rendered":"Ahhh…completed Easter dress"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It’s always a nice feeling to have a finished project.\u00c2\u00a0 The completion of this\u00c2\u00a0one is particularly satisfying for me, as I have wanted to make\u00c2\u00a0Judith Dobson’s Tea Dress<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0for 22 years!\u00c2\u00a0 That’s a long time to wait, though I was hardly idle as the years passed.<\/p>\n

When this dress appeared on the back cover of the Jan. 1989 issue of Sew Beautiful magazine, I knew that someday I would have the pleasure of making it. My daughter was already too old for the pattern, so I’ve waited\u00c2\u00a0for the sweet blessing of\u00c2\u00a0 a granddaughter.<\/p>\n

“Someday” is now and it will be 6 year-old Laurel’s Easter dress.\u00c2\u00a0Now I am so eager to see it with the blue slip which\u00c2\u00a0is almost finished.<\/p>\n

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The dress is finished but I am still thinking about it, evaluating the finished product, the pattern, the choices I made with regard to notions, embroidery designs, thread fibers and colors,\u00c2\u00a0 etc.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you do this?<\/p>\n

The\u00c2\u00a0champagne colored\u00c2\u00a0lace, matching entredeux and pinstitching is a choice that I knew would cause no regrets.\u00c2\u00a0 I love the combination of white and ivory.\u00c2\u00a0 The 80 wt. Madeira Cotona thread used for the wing needle pinstitch blends nicely with the champagne color.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The ecru mother-of-pearl buttons seem to accent the contrast of white and champagne.<\/p>\n

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Even as I move on to the slip, the voice of experience is telling me how this could have been better.\u00c2\u00a0What was going through my mind when I picked up 30 wt. thread for the buttonholes?\u00c2\u00a0 They are better suited to a Harley-Davidson leather jacket.<\/p>\n

Then I wonder if the back isn’t overdone.\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps it would have been better to have skipped the embroidery between the buttonholes.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh well.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s done now.<\/p>\n

Another problem with the back is my lack of attention to the pattern details.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The lace placement line\u00c2\u00a0clearly curves down and then angles toward center back, parallel to the hem.\u00c2\u00a0 I rounded it, ignoring the reason for this angle.\u00c2\u00a0 As a result, the lace at center back doesn’t meet as it should, since each side is still on a downward curve when they overlap.<\/p>\n

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Additionally, I didn’t notice that the lace on the left side had stretched and ends up wider than the lace it meets.\u00c2\u00a0 Grrrrrr……maybe I shouldn’t be listening to my Pandora music radio when I\u00c2\u00a0 am sewing.<\/p>\n

One feature that really pleased me was the placket.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0If you have never tried Debbie Glenn’s “Painless Placket,” I highly recommend it.\u00c2\u00a0 Continuous lap plackets are annoying, more time consuming and much bulkier than Debbie’s.\u00c2\u00a0Her directions and the article which appeared in Sew Beautiful<\/em> magazine can be downloaded here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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This chunky bumble bee was my constant companion as I photographed the dress. The jasmine is buzzing with the rest of his family.<\/p><\/div>\n

The directions\u00c2\u00a0are printed out and kept in a page protector in my sewing room for easy reference.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0After\u00c2\u00a0stitching \u00c2\u00a0a few absolutely painless plackets,\u00c2\u00a0the\u00c2\u00a0instructions are no longer necessary.<\/p>\n

When I saw the Heirloom Tea Dress <\/em>pattern for sale\u00c2\u00a0from Martha Pullen, I felt smug knowing I had the free version in my treasured collection of Sew Beautiful<\/em> mags.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s nice to save $12 but there is a lot to be said for what I assume is a new and improved set of directions.\u00c2\u00a0 For instance, I wish I had had the newer pattern when it was time to cut out the skirt.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0There is no measurement for the width, which clearly is less than a 45″ width.\u00c2\u00a0 I had to extract that information from the directions for the puffing band, which was to be finished at 72 1\/2″.<\/p>\n

This was not a huge inconvenience, but then I discovered that the template for the flip flop lace was not included.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s likely that it was accidentally omitted and appeared in the next issue.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than go into the stacks of my old issues, boxed up in the garage, I\u00c2\u00a0drafted my own.\u00c2\u00a0 That took some time that I wish I had back.<\/p>\n

I’m off to finish the slip and do some planning for the boys’ outfits.\u00c2\u00a0 So am I the only one sewing Easter outfits?\u00c2\u00a0 I’d love to hear about what you are doing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s always a nice feeling to have a finished project.\u00c2\u00a0 The completion of this\u00c2\u00a0one is particularly satisfying for me, as I have wanted to make\u00c2\u00a0Judith Dobson’s Tea Dress\u00c2\u00a0for 22 years!\u00c2\u00a0 That’s a long time to wait, though I was hardly … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,25,28,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12272"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12272"}],"version-history":[{"count":47,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22329,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12272\/revisions\/22329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}