Additional Dessert Recipes

     More dessert recipes to delight your taste buds!

Chewy Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

Impossibly Easy French Apple Dessert Squares

Chocolate and Caramel Oatmeal Bars

Banquet Dress – Part 2 – Patterns

image from Sew Red Hot

This dress really caught my eye. Especially the bodice.

It is made from Vogue 1172. The bodice has princess seaming and nice sleeves/straps which I think will be perfect for my banquet dress.

I still want to do a double circle skirt though. I don’t think that should be very hard to draft.

Anthro-Inspired Bedpread

     Isn’t this comforter amazing? It’s made of jersey which would be super snuggly! I am really thinking of making one!

image and tutorial from Kojo Designs

Banquet Dress – Part 1 – Design

 

The banquet rolls around once a year. And once it’s over I immediately start thinking about next year’s dress. We swing dance at the banquet, so it is imperative that I can dance in the dress. I ran across this dress from Refugee Crafter:

It’s gorgeous! Based on that, here is the sketch I came up with:

My version has:

• Boat Neckline
• Fully Lined Bodice (probably cotton)
• Princess Seaming
• A full circle skirt (the more I look at my inspiration, the more I think it is 2 circles around)
• Chiffon on top (Inspiration has 4 layers in skirt)
• Taffeta underneath
• Rolled Hem with Serger for Skirt edge
• Either full length or tea length. This is probably gonna depend on what size taffeta/chiffon I can find
• Waist Stay

Possibilities:

• Beading around neckline
• chiffon sleeves
• Possible chiffon layer on bodice too, if it needs it
• Triple ribbons on upper layer of skirt
• Boning?
• Decide on lining for skirt – synthetic or cotton?

That’s what I have so far. Things might change. We’ll see. :)

Vintage Patterns

During my recent shopping trip at the thrift store, I also picked up a bunch of vintage patterns for 25 cents apiece!!

Advance 2764 Short or Long-Sleeved Dress with Box Pleats

Vogue 5088 This one has multiple views, including a gathered skirt, pencil skirt, 3/4 length sleeves, sleeveless, and a jacket. This one will be lots of fun!

Vogue 5250 This one has an overblouse, but I don’t really care for it. I bought it mostly for the box pleated skirt.

Mccalls 3973 includes 5 different blouse patterns. I can’t wait to try some of these to go with skirts this spring/summer.

Butterick 4309 This one is from the ‘70’s maybe? I’m not sure. It is a 14, which in the 50’s patterns fits me fine, but I don’ think it is going to fit right in this pattern. I don’t know yet. I bought it mainly for the Raglan Sleeve T-shirt pattern on the right.

Simplicity 3637 CULOTTES!! Haha! I am excited to see what this looks like made up! They include “soft pleats” and a pocket. teehee.

Vintage Notions Motherload!

I dropped by a local thrift store around the corner from me. They usually don’t have much, but I guess they just got some new stuff! I really got a lot of stuff! I think I got all this for $10. Which in my mind is well worth it, considering it would have cost a lot more than that at Hancocks. Vintage knitting needles, stretch lace, belt buckle kits, eyelet kit, and some vintage zippers. And some Scotch Sewing Tape…whatever that is. I’ll have to do some research on it.

Ruffly Petticoat Slip

I have an unreasonable desire for my skirts to be full and sorta fluffy. I have an April Cornell slip that I really like. It is really thin and works well under all my skirts. However, it is a full slip and doesn’t work so nicely with all of my tops. I had made a long half slip for my banquet dress awhile back and decided. Here it is altered.

I started with a sketch (I’ll spare you the sketch…it was quite rudimentary). I ended up cutting strips of muslin and just sewing them straight onto the skirt without finishing the edges. I didn’t gather them first either, I just kinda bunched the strips up as they went under the presser foot.

Of course not finishing the edges produced this when I washed it.

It had a waistband, but it came up too high, so I cut it off and made a new one out of the muslin. I had to pleat the slip to get it to fit onto the waistband. I suppose I could have gathered it, but pleats don’t add as much bulk in the wrong spot.

I also added a couple rows of pintucking at the bottom to help with the length issue. Those are kinda hard to see, but they’re there!

For the closure I just stitched on a button and added a couple of button holes. I am SOOO pleased with my new machine (which I just realized I haven’t blogged about yet…whoops) and it’s button hole feature! I think it’s a one-step. In that you line everything up and push the pedal til it’s done. The button that you are using gets put into the foot itself so it knows how long to make it and everything. I made 2 perfect buttonholes on my first try! :giggle:

It works well under my skirts and adds a nice bit of floof without looking ridiculous. It really helps keep me warm too!

Tasty Dessert Recipes

I get several recipe newsletters that contain very tasty looking recipes! I am highlighting some that I would like to try.

Iced Molasses Cookies

Malt Shoppe Memories Ice Cream Cookie Cake

This pie uses malt powder and crushed Whoppers, which I don’t really care for the taste of. I think that you could use Reese’s or possibly crushed Oreo’s.

Peanut Butter Rocky Road Brownies

Peanut-Topped Brownies with Maple Filling

Fudgy Frosted Brownie Cookies

Christmas Décor Tutorials

Here are a few tutorials for Christmas decorating.Snowball Ornament from Martha Stewart

Yo-Yo Christmas Tree by Kiwi at Heart

Scrapbook Christmas Tree by Crate Paper

Snowman Family by Child Made Tutorials

Paper Tree from Daydream Designs

Map Tree from  Mary Janes and Galoshes

Wax Paper Tree from Bower Power Blog

Simplicity 2758

I had made a skirt several years ago that I just simply didn’t like. It didn’t fit quite right, didn’t fall to just the right length, stuff like that. So I decided to remake it!
     I decided on Simplicity 2758. I put on button tabs and the pleat in the front.
     It was fairly straightforward to make. Came together easily. However…it didn’t fit me. I would suggest taking a double look at the finished garment measurements and such. It ended up fitting my sister and looks good on her, so it was a happy ending after all! Still a little disappointing.
      This was the skirt I hemmed using the hem marker. I think it looks fantastic! The only thing I don’t like about this skirt is that the pleat may not be obvious enough. It looks like it’s a split skirt even though it’s not. Oh well. The blouses in that pattern are cute as well! And I might make one at some point.

Hem Marker Tutorial…sorta

     Hemming has always been my absolute least favorite thing to do! It’s hard to mark on your own, and then it takes forever to pin and forever again to sew. But I think I have found a solution! I wasn’t sure how to use the flappy thing on my dress form, but ran across this post by the Cupcake Goddess. So I decided to give it a shot. Mine is a little different, but it’s the same basic principle. Mark where you want the hem to hang.
Then adjust your marker arm to the correct height. I would recommend that you take note of which number it rests on. I had trouble with mine sliding a little, but this was easily kept in check by making sure it was on the same number.
Then just place your fabric between the 2 plastic sticks and your pin can go through the notched edge.
Somehow it bunches the fabric just right so that it goes through easily and catches twice to prevent the pin from sliding out. It worked really well!
Really takes the guess work out of it.
     I especially tend to get my skirts shorter in the back because of derrière. But I think this will help. Although it wouldn’t work as well if the dress form is not almost the same size. I think mine is close enough to make it work. I can’t wait to make another skirt now!

Gift Bag from Newspaper

I know this is coming a little late for the Holidays, but here is a cute tutorial I found on making gift bags.

From How About Orange – Gift Bags from Newspaper