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Monday 21 January 2013

Time to let go...

A tiny piece of wool tweed (hoarded for more than two decades)

+

cream silk charmeuse (harvested from a blouse which has been hoarded for almost as long)

+

silk thread left over from my wedding dress (and hoarded etc)


high-stakes sewing.





I could have raised the stakes still further with an ultra-complex pattern, but luckily that just wasn't an option: any extra seams or tucks or flounces would have eaten too far into my scraps of fabric.

So instead, we have a super-simple pinafore made from super-sentimental materials.

I sewed it up just like the Cloth-kits Peekaboo dress, though this time I traced around an existing dress with a particularly lovely shape (it was passed on by a friend who had her children in France, and it seems to bear out that stereotype about French clothes always being perfectly cut).

Perhaps a confident French seamstress would have left it unembellished, but my nerve failed and I added some cotton lace, appliqued (apologies if that isn't a word) just below the waist. It came from the stash as well, of course. The loss of nerve may have been linked to the phrase 'oh no, that'll be like sack-cloth' which my husband may have let slip during the cutting out. But it seems a happy addition, either way.





So, photo-shoot over. It's time to see if my daughter likes it. 

And if she does (and I do hope she will) it will soon be encountering paint, glue, mud, glitter, hot chocolate, toothpaste and tomato soup.

Now I need to let go...





4 comments:

  1. hehe..."high stakes" sewing! The tweed is gorgeous and perfect for a pinafore.:)

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  2. Great post - love the dress and the lace looks pretty (although sack like could not be further from the truth!)

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  3. Thank you all (hmm, Saks - I like that...)

    I feel bit guilty now and need to leap to Husband's defence - it was a passing comment before he was aware of the high stakes - and he has said only positive things about it since!

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