What I'm wearing for Mother's Day

You know I wear Libby Dibby wrap skirts for pretty much every holiday, right? This Mother's Day, I'm not... I splurged, and used up all my gift certificates yesterday and got this PRETTY dress at Anthropologie... Oh, it's so pretty... (sigh)
J's reaction? "yummy"
:)

Spring Ruffle Top Dress (#2 of 3 for the week)

Still a little too chilly to wear the dress like a sundress, but here's the dress which is the elongated top with a ruffle attached.

Socialite Dress

This week's project was Anna Maria Horner's Socialite Dress. Tif came over and we worked on them together, making the major mistakes on mine and then doing hers. =) We both finished ours yesterday and were planning on wearing them today, I told her she should not plan on running into me, we'll look ridiculous!

We used the measurements on her website for not just the finished garment size, but the actual body size (which isn't mentioned on the pattern itself) and both of us opted for the Large. I used a heavyweight Amy Butler fabric and found it doesn't look good belted as I'd planned to wear it. Tif's is a lighter weight fabric and she found a belt she's happy wearing with it. At first, though I enjoyed most of the sewing part (didn't like doing the rather fussy neckline), I didn't like the fit at first - so I cheated and cut two inches out of the back of the dress around 11pm last night. I like it now.

A highlight is that the dress has pockets - which I've never sewn before and rather enjoy having on the dress.

I also had intended to make it longer but spent some time on Flickr last night looking at other people's versions of the dress and figured that it looked less like a housedress when it was shorter and cuter.

These pics were taken by my 4 and 5 year olds. Not too bad after a little editing.

Sewing in the car

There's a first for everything. Today in between having 2 of my nieces over for a spring break sleepover, "sponsoring" a lemonade stand and generally being crazy Auntie Lala... I'm sewing in the car. I told my sister that I'm trying to be the auntie I couldn't be over the last few tired months. So today I'm carting around 4 kids between 4-6.5 years old. (getting lots of awesome looks) In my 4 and a half down minutes in the car, I'm working on the final (hand stitched) portions of a dress pattern (Anna Maria Horner's socialite dress)... Hope to finish it today and wear it tomorrow.

Stealth inspiration photos.

Or maybe not so stealth, but I love my iphone for making it easier to capture pictures of inspirational things much more discreetly. When we were in Italy, there were so many clothes and women dressed in things I wanted pictures of - and as a tourist, it was easy to not offend - people wouldn't know that I was taking their pic. But here at home, it's nice to be a little discreet.

Regardless, here are some pictures from all over the place of clothing that has inspired me this summer.

Look at this gingerbread house purse... isn't it so fun?

I am not a purple fan, but I did love the drape of the dress and the combination of the mint color with the purple was really striking as we walked down the street in Venice.

Everything in this store looked like something I wanted in a bad way.

It also looked like I'd be paying it off the rest of my life. But someday, (you know, next week, when I return to Venice in my dreams!) I would love to go shopping in this lovely place.

Why can't I get enough patchwork? I think this was in Florence.

This one is my favorite of all the dresses I saw this summer. It's in a shop called "God Save the Queen" in Florence, Italy.

This was on an older woman in Seattle. Maybe that's why I liked it even more. A bold choice and she was no fashionista, but I liked the skirt a lot and I liked her for wearing it.

I don't do white. But I'd love to make this for myself in a different color.

Celebrating Independence Day in Libby Dibby style

We were in Seattle for the 4th and got a down-home small town Washington state parade to enjoy with lots of cousins. Mimi wore one of her spinny skirts and I thought I'd share some of my favorite pics from the day. (you may also recognize the red dress that I added the ruffle to before my trip to Italy.... it's been a staple this summer)

Another dress for Italy...

I did not make this dress.. It's literally one of those, "that old thing?" kind of dresses. I bought it a few years ago at (gasp) Rite Aid- just to wear as a cover up to the beach. But it occurred to me that it would be the perfect recipient of some Alexander Henry fabric I've been saving for years... And ruffles are now something I'm not afraid of anymore (for both sewing and wearing)... So the dress got a makeover in time to make it into the suitcase. Truth is, I wanted to bring along a red dress and have run out of sewing time. We leave tomorrow!

Dress #2 - Brown and Green

So here is my second of a few dresses that I've made recently...

I also decided to include a peek into my studio for you.