Jane Austen Dress

How many soon-to-be 16-year-old daughters ask for a Pride and Prejudice era dress for their birthday? Not many!! 

But lucky me (or unlucky depending how you look at it), I have one of the few!

So, instead of quilting for the last month, I've been sewing this monster of a dress. It could have been much less monstrous had the ENTIRE DRESS not called for lining. SERIOUSLY!

The fact that I bought the wrong size of pattern and had to alter it didn't help either.

Oh well! After much sweat, I finished it just in time for her 16th birthday party, which happened to be a costume party. And miss Elizabeth Bennett looked stunning, so it was all worth it!

A few years ago I bought a Simplicity pattern (like the dress pictured below on my daughter's friend) at JoAnn's for only $1, thinking one day it would be fun to make for Halloween. What happens to something when you finally need it? It goes missing!

 So back to JoAnn's I went, and happened to hit the Butterick $1 pattern sale. 

Unlike the Simplicity pattern, this pattern was fully lined. Because we used cotton fabric, we probably didn't need the lining, but I didn't trust myself to alter the pattern anymore than I already had.

Complete with a Grommet Lace-Up Closure

Miss Elizabeth and Jane Bennett

Even more fun was having a friend dress up as Miss Jane Bennett! Don't they look stunning? Now, where's Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy?

Pillows

 I wanted to add a little splash of red and turquoise to my living room, so I sewed up these two couch pillows.  For this rectangle pillow, I gathered some 1-1/2 inch strips of turquoise material and sewed them on the pillow front corner-to-corner.  For the flower, I twisted and coiled the fabric strips and hand-stitched them to the pillow front. I had a tendency to pull my hand stitches tight, and the fabric gathered, so I had to watch it and loosen the stitches a bit as I went.  After the front was finished, I sewed the back and front together, stuffed the pillow, and hand-stitched it closed.