I have a confession to make. My dirty little sewing secret, if you will.
This dress is a Junebug dress from Craftiness is Not Optional. I've made ten bajillion of Kristen's remixes, but never the original pattern. I just upped the size to fit 4t-tall two-year-old. My mom got the fabric at Sir's Fabrics in Fayetteville, TN and the buttons are from my grandmother's sewing room.
This is SO my county fair entry for this year!
So, after this I expect to have a note from Kristin of skirt as top revoking my right to ever make another dress even vaguely resembling a Sweet Tartan. I will *totally* understand too. I promise, promise, promise I'll do my level best to not make another one until spring!
And let me tell you, after working out the sleeves (without realizing I made it way too hard), realizing they were weird and wonky, ripping them out twice to fix them, then getting the skirt on backwards and realizing it was about 6 incihes shy of being full enough, ripping it out, cobbling together a better skirt then realizing I didn't have enough of the off white to do a full under-skirt, there is *very* little that will induce me to make another of these before April.
Just sayin'.
Anyway. Here she is. The fall/winter Sweet Tartan with puffed, banded sleeves. And buttons selected by the Boy Scout because he has Crazy Button Selection Skills.
The fabric is some from my Grandmother's stash that has probably been around since the 80s at least. The off-white is a sheet from Goodwill that I threw in the sink with a bunch of tea bags until it was the color I wanted.
So, a couple of tutorials helped me make this dress.
1) skirt as top's Sweet Tartan dress tutorial. duh! I've made a blue-million of them and the sleeveless versions are too too adorable.
2) This indietutes tutorial on how to puff a sleeve. I totally drafted one from the pattern which was both dumb and time-consuming. So I'll add this - if you are adding a sleeve to something sleeveless, just grab a basic sleeve pattern piece and puff it extra. if it wasn't a perfect fit to start, the puffing will allow you to take up any extra and will just be extra puffy. Which is the point of a puffed sleeve.
I think I'm Sweet Tartaned out. This one has whipped me!
So we never made it to the county fair this week. Between battling allergies and getting a new-to-me car, there was just no time!
The car thing too about 5 times as long as it should. Somehow, every one of us who looked at the car never noticed the HUGE FREAKIN' WIRE sticking out of the rear passenger tire! Once we noticed it, for some strange reason it took four hours to get a new tire and have it changed out. But, I've got a new-to-me small SUV.
I know, awful woman! Don't I care about the environment? Gas prices? Politics? In short: yes, yes, and no. But there are some hard facts that have got to be faced. One of the main ones is this: I am negatively mending from that stupid epidural fiasco round about two years ago. My back is still not quite right from it and neither is my left leg. So, to decrease strain on those parts, a higher-profile vehicle is a must. Also, My old car (as grand as she's been) was getting unreliable. It is nothing but luck that I didn't have Elizabeth with me the day the alternator died in a flash flood and had to wait four hours for AAA to show up. And the weird fan-noise was distressing.
And incidentally, the cure for gas prices is driving less. And the cure for politics is to realize that no matter what, in this country the citizenry is in control and *can* rise up in protest of the powers that be. We are all just too fat and lazy to do more than update facebook statuses about how our own personal opinion is right and the 'other side' is a bunch of Godless baby-eaters who dance naked in the moonlight pooping on the Constitution.*
BUT! New-to-me car! Yay! It is a Grand Vitara in really dark blue that I've decided to name Kitara. Gonna get one of these for the back window. The Boy Scout approves it as both amusing and appropriate.
In other news, I did go collect my two entries from the fair this year. Ahem:
That's right! Two blue ribbons! I only wish I knew what my competition was. I am frankly FLOORED by both. And I'm telling you this right now - that Sweet Tartan is getting retired to the back of the closet. This summer, it has been worn to a wedding, a fund raiser, church a million times, and has now won a blue ribbon at the fair. It is done! That's a good life! And the diaper? It's a stunner too. Imagine a diaper winning! What a hoot! It's going back in the drawer after it's washed and will be used and used. It's my favorite and I've missed it this week.
I'll end this post with 'comb' as Elizabeth calls it. This outside rug will never be dirty again now that we have discovered the joys of foam between our toes.
*And lets be reasonable here. Given the protection of the original document, the likelihood of the Constitution being crapped on is quite low. I think the docents and security guards would eject any random poopers before their task was complete. Not to mention as the windows are blacked out, the moonlight part is unlikely as well. Same with the no-food-and-drink policy.
