It's A Sweetheart Of A Deal!

I did some sewing on Monday and Tuesday night.  Completely forgetting about a meeting I was supposed to attend on Monday night...  oops.  But after the weekend I've had, it seems like it was still kind of a weekend.

Anyway.  I've been doing more work on Maddy's dress.  AND I got 30 minutes in over my lunch hour yesterday to work on it!  It needed it.  

 

The pleating is done!!!  Check out the instructions on the pattern piece below.  I don't like to actually mark on the fabric, because I've been known to accidentally use the wrong kind of fabric marker and then it's permanent...  Found that out on the wedding gown I made a couple years ago!  BUT I've come up with a way to work the pleats and they came out looking good!

Here is my strategy.   Sit on a table that you can iron on.  Turn on 70s or 80s Classic Rock on Live365.  See those 4 little dots at the corners of each pleat?  Stick a pin in them attaching the pattern to the fabric.  Then fold over the pattern piece along with the fabric until the pins and dots match up and iron over everything.  Stick a pin in to hold the pleat in place.

 

Then move on the next pleat.  When you're done with the set of them, start back on the first one you did and take the pins out.  Slide the pattern piece out of the fabric and you've got some nice creases to run a basting stitch on to hold the pleat in place until the top is sewn to the skirt.  Above is part of the top.  The skirt part had more pleats!

I told Maddy that the pieces are in place and the lining is half way sewn in now.  It's just a matter of fitting them together like a puzzle.  I knew I liked puzzles for some reason!  The fabric is actually darker than it shows in the picture below.  That darn flash photography...

Anyway Maddy made me a sweetheart of a deal...  If I can get the dress done by this weekend, I can take it to my sewing meeting on Saturday AND she'll quit politely pestering me about it.

What a deal!!!