craftygoals: May 2026

May 1, 2026May 14, 20261 Comment

Everyone in my household is flabbergasted that we’re already a week into May; like, where did April go and when did it actually happen? Needless to say, spring is in full swing around here! Lots of fun stuff, plenty of sunshine, and a reinvigorating of the soul as we cast our eyes towards the end of the school year.

Debrief: April’s #craftygoals:

Riley Blake Designs Block Challenge Sew Along: GUYS. I am officially caught up! Fourteen blocks sewn up! Patting myself on the back here because it is rare indeed when I get that far behind on something and then am actually able to truly get caught back up again. I haven’t had a chance to do photoshoots on all the blocks yet, so I’ll have to come back and do another post for that.
Fat Quarter Shop’s Sewcialites 3 Sew Along: Staying caught up on that! The Cherry Limeade quilt is coming along beautifully, and I’ve found some great internet friends via the Sewcialites Facebook group. It’s such a nice group of people who are cheering each other on and lavishing praise left and right on everyone. This might be a sew along I continue with for many years because I’m enjoying both the actual sew along and also its participants so much.
Renaissance’s Chef Clothing Tailoring: She never approached me about it and it doesn’t seem to be bothering her that much, so I may not actually help with this after all.
Rachel’s Prom Dress Tailoring: I had to install a lining because the bodice was made from see-through MESH, but I figured it out easily enough and did a good job. Minimal hemming, woo hoo! She looked gorgeous; I’m so thankful that she really loved big, poufy ballgowns and we were able to go crazy with the full skirts over the years. Also thankful that my formal dress-hemming days are OVER. (No, I will NOT be making their wedding dresses, making the prom dresses cured me of that dream.)

Graduation Quilts: I have all but one signature for Renaissance’s quilt. I’ve marked the seamlines on all of the blanks for Rachel’s quilt and have handed out quite a few of them to former teachers. I also realized that I think the signature “top” should actually be a signature “backing” because both of the girls have said they think they’d prefer that. SOOOOOOO…I’m designing new tops for the quilts to match the vibes of the now-backs of the quilts. Because when I said I’d make them a quilt each, I really meant two quilts each but cleverly packaged as just one quilt. ::rolls eyes::
Penguin Party Quilt: Quilt top completed! Yaaaayyyy!! And that is where it will remain for a few months as I shift my attention to Rachel’s graduation. Anti-climactic? Yes. But I told you that THIS IS THE YEAR I FINISH THIS QUILT.
Smitten EPP Quilt: I did put some time in on it. Can you tell? Not really. Rachel started her own Smitten quilt in the last couple of weeks to deal with the boredom of the last weeks of senior year. Everything is wrapping up and she’s tired of wasting time on her phone, so she asked me for some pointers on fabric placement and the like and then employed the EPP skills she acquired when I taught it to her and all the other Activity Days girls in our Utah ward forever ago. She’s completed about five of the large blocks and two or three of the small blocks and they look pretty good. It’s been so much fun to hang out in the craft room together in the evenings as she cuts fabric for her next block; like a little pause between school days Rachel and adulthood Rachel. I’ll cherish these conversations forever. So much is changing on the horizon for her and it is running at us full-tilt.
Jingle Bell Socks: They are done! They still need blocking and finishing, which probably won’t happen until the knitting bug hits again in autumn, but they are technically done.
Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt: Not technically a goal last month, but I decided to start every sewing session with fifteen minutes of quilting/finishing and lo and behold, the Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt is officially quilted! I’ve also trimmed it and created the binding for it. I’m just as shocked as you are. It’s only taken six years.

May #craftygoals:

Time-Sensitive Things That Need Working on ASAP:

Graduation!: I’ve got some massive graduation party planning to do in the next month, so my craft progress may be extremely impacted, but it’s totally fine. I need to make graduation leis for Rachel and her friends, and all the random things that will make her graduation party extra nice. So many fun projects!

Riley Black Designs Block Challenge Sew Along: This ends this month! There are sixteen block and I’ve sewn fourteen of them! Woot woot! There are a handful of setting blocks and sashings to actually finish this thing, but we’re not going to focus on that too much. I’m trusting that the energy of finishing the last block will push me to keep going. Wouldn’t it be great if I just finished this whole quilt by the end of May? A girl can dream…because if it’s not finished by the end of May, it will languish due to graduation and the absolute insanity of our summer schedule. So yeah, I guess the goal is to finish this completely by the end of May.

Fat Quarter Shop Sewcialites 3 Sew Along: Almost halfway there! Block #12 comes out tomorrow! I am still just absolutely loving this sew along. I ordered my border, backing and binding fabrics last week. It’s going to be such a pretty quilt! It’s so different from what I normally do and it’s proving that deviating from your comfort zone can be a really, really good thing. With graduation coming up and some really crazy scheduling in the weeks right after graduation, it would be a good thing if I could actually finish both May’s and June’s blocks during May. I’ve mocked up the entire quilt already so I’d be working off my own guesses at how the scheduled blocks are going to go together, but who cares?

Sewcialites 3 Block #6 Window Seat made with green, red, orange, yellow and pink fabrics.

Sewcialites 3 Block #7 Flower made with green and pink fabrics and altered to look like a watermelon flower.

Graduation Quilts:

Renaissance’s: I might be able to really get going on Ren’s here soon. Needing to also construct a new top is going to slow me down, obviously, but the quilt will be used a lot more as a result and I cannot stand it when people stuff a quilt in a closet, so here we are. It would be good if I could finish Ren’s quilt entirely.
Rachel’s: It could start moving forward; I’ve received quite a few signed blocks back already. I’ve mocked up her quilt top design and she’s enthusiastically approved it, so the fabric for that was included in the Sewcialites order and will be here next week. It would be good if I could finish the top this month and add the borders to the blocks that have already been signed.

Things to Work on After the ASAP Projects:

Machine Stitching:

Rainbow Coin Strip Scrap Quilt with black venom binding

Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt: It’d be good if I could get this finished for good! That fifteen minutes at the start of each sewing session accomplishes a lot! We’ll see…
Sew Many Stars BOM Christmas Quilt: This is the next UFO to finish on 2026’s list. I highly doubt I’ll get through my other projects to the point where I’ll work on this, but I’m listing it as a possibility.

Hand Stitching:

English Paper Piecing: Smitten EPP Quilt: My Smitten quilt is permanently located in its rolling cart next to the couch in the TV Room, and I’ll pick it up here and there to work on, but with daylight lasting longer and life being busy I don’t know how much work will go into it during the month of May. Watching Rachel’s quilt come together makes me want to get my own quilt going again, though, so perhaps her enthusiasm will rub off on me?

Knitting: I need a new car knitting project. I could wind some cool yarn and just make some regular ol’ socks? Although, with warmer weather coming up I probably won’t accomplish much knitting in the next while. I do prefer to do embroidery or EPP in the warmer months.

Embroidery: Perhaps, given the knitting conundrum, I should figure out an embroidery car project? There’s a beehive embroidery kit that’s been languishing for some time. I could pop it into the car for the summer.

It’s a great time of year, full of all sorts of fun things! I hope your projects are going well, and if you’re too busy with other things at the moment, remember that it’s totally fine to take breaks because the yarn and the fabric will wait for you. Enjoy the sunshine, the celebrations, and the time with family and friends, if that’s what’s pulling you away.

Summary of May’s Crafty Goals:

Graduation projects: Leis, party prep, etc.
Riley Blake Designs Block Challenge: Finish up last blocks, maybe finish the entire thing?
Fat Quarter Shop Sewcialites 3 Sew Along: Definitely finish May’s blocks, but try to get June’s blocks done ahead of time, too.
Renaissance’s Graduation Quilt: Try to finish completely. Crazy goal.
Rachel’s Graduation Quilt: Try to finish the new top and add borders to the already-signed blocks.
Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt: Finish completely.

Layer Cake Crêpe Quilt, a free pattern from Fat Quarter Shop, made with "A Very Sweet Christmas" fabric collection designed by Bunny Hill Designs.

The Projects of 2025

December 31, 2025December 30, 2025Leave a comment

‘Tis the season for a wrap-up post! Let’s take a lookie-loo at what I was up to in 2025, shall we?

King David’s Crown Quilt for Fat Quarter Shop

First up in 2025 was a new pattern for Fat Quarter Shop’s “Classic and Vintage” series of patterns: King David’s Crown. I sewed it up in Corey Yoder’s “Cali & Co.” after falling in love with her choices for background fabrics in the collection. Which is odd, but whatever, the heart wants what the heart wants. I love this quilt so much! It’s so pretty!

King David’s Crown quilt pattern in Cali & Co. fabric, made by That Crafty Cara (Cara Brooke) for Fat Quarter Shop

Fish Friendship Bracelet for Rachel

I’m not sure I ever posted about this, but it happened. Rachel was helping me declutter my craft room and she came across my tattered collection of friendship bracelet instructions from my middle school days. As she flipped through them she saw the fish pattern and commented that it’d be cool to have, so I made one for her for her birthday. Not a big deal, project-wise, but it was fun to dust off that very, very old skillset.

Fish Friendship Bracelet made with orange and blue embroidery floss

Star Climber Scrap Quilt

This is still a project-in-progress, but I’m loving it. Star Climber is another free pattern from Fat Quarter Shop, created especially for scrap-busting.

Stripey Christmas Socks

Started in 2024, but not finished in time for last year’s Christmas, so I got them done in February. I loved wearing these fabulous Christmas socks this Christmas season! I’m on the hunt for all the different Christmas colorways of this West Yorkshire Spinners’ Signature 4-ply yarn so I can own the entire holiday rainbow!

Handknit Christmas socks made with red, green, and white self-striping yarn.

Layer Cake Crêpe Quilt for Fat Quarter Shop

You never saw this, and neither did the rest of the quilting world because I shut down my blog in from May through September of this year, with the full intention of never coming back. I had a stalker in the last part of 2024 and was granted a restraining order that forbade him from making any contact with me for an entire year. However, in the spring I started seeing some activity in my analytics that suggested he might be checking up on me via the blog and it spooked me, so I made the decision to stop feeding the monster and walk away.

But it turns out that I really love blogging and sharing my creative endeavors on social media, and I resented that I had been forced out of the things I loved by that dude. After some serious therapeutic work, I made the decision to come back online in September because I don’t think it’s fair that I be expected to abandon what I love because of someone else’s poor behavior. It’s definitely a personal, multi-faceted choice, and I do worry that it might be a foolish one, but I don’t want to spend my life hiding my talents under a bush just because someone got weird about it all. How do you continue going on if, every time you get good at something, someone behaves dumb about it and you’re expected to quit your hobby because of their choices? It’s crazy. Nope, no thanks.

So, here it is for the first time ever, my Layer Cake Crêpe quilt:

I used the “A Very Sweet Christmas” collection by Bunny Hill Designs, along with Moda Bella Solids in Baby Pink (#9900-30). It’s a super fast pattern to put together because the blocks are HUGE. It’s available for free over on Fat Quarter Shop’s website. Thank you, Fat Quarter Shop, for our ten years (!) of working together on projects like this. I’ve really enjoyed it all.

Hemming Rachel’s Prom Dress

I know that hemming isn’t an interesting “project,” but I have to include it on my list of projects because SO MUCH OF MY CRAFTING TIME is taken up with hemming formal dresses for Rachel, and I forget that I did the hemming and then wonder what was up with my time management skills because I don’t seem to get any projects done these days. Except I do; it’s just that it’s tailoring and hemming ballgowns for my daughter.

Teenaged girl in her Cinderella-blue strapless prom dress in 2025.

Marching Band Uniform Repair

I just want an excuse to share this picture with you because I absolutely love it:

Band Mom mends a pair of drum major pants in the back of a truck en route to a parade

One of the drum majors’ pants split right before a parade, so they were tossed to me in the back of the band trailer truck bed and I sewed as fast as I could as we travelled down the back streets of whatever town we were in to get to our starting location for the parade. Ha ha ha, another mom snapped this photo and I was very quick to ask them to share it with me because I knew I’d love it. (Pants were completed just in-time!)

Patriotic Graduation Lei

I made a bunch of music-themed graduation leis in 2024 for my daughter and her band friends, and one of the parents reached out to me this year and asked if I could make one for her graduating daughter, but with American Flag ribbon. I was pleased with how it turned out.

Graduation RIbbon Lei made with maroon, gold, and American Flag-print ribbons

Smitten Quilt

All the individual blocks are pieced! I think I started this during 2020 Lockdown, so it’s been a slow and steady work. I started attaching the blocks into rows this summer, but it will probably take a long while before this quilt is actually done. I tend to only work on it in the summer.

"Smitten" English paper-pieced half hexagon quilt blocks, made with bright quilting fabric scraps

Fourth of July Pennant Banner

I’m realizing, between the patriotic graduation lei, my husband’s Christmas socks, and now this little banner, that I’ve done a lot of Americana-themed stuff this year. I threw this together one day in June because I was decorating for the upcoming holiday and wanted my mantel to be a little cuter, so it happened.

Fourth of July patriotic American fabric bunting made with red, white, and blue fabric scraps and red and white striped ribbon

Reading Nook Cottage Quilt

I briefly mentioned this as a possible crafty goal in 2024. I ordered the fabric while I was completing my Master’s degree back in…2023(?), promising myself that I’d make something nice for myself with it once I graduated. Well, I was busy when I graduated and then everything went crazy, so I didn’t get to actually working on it until the summer of 2025. It’s a pattern of my own design, but nothing special; anyone could reverse-engineer it pretty fast. It’s still a work-in-progress; I decided to set it aside so I could resume working on Ren’s Penguin quilt.

Cottage Quilt in progress, made with "Reading Nook" fabric collection in teal, orange, and purple fabrics

Penguin Parade Quilt

This is the quilt that never ends. I really thought 2025 was going to be the year, but alas, it was not. Fingers crossed for 2026!

Penguin Party quilt made with pastel plaid flannels

Hemming Rachel’s Homecoming Dress

Such a pretty dress, but I was sick while I hemmed it and when she went off to the dance, so I don’t really have any photos of it.

Hemming Rachel’s Daffodil Princess Selection Dress

Oh my gosh, I am sick of hemming formal dresses. I would so much rather make the entire dress than hem a store-bought one. Hemming the dress is the worst part, and Rachel does not enjoy the process of being fitted for a handmade dress, so I no longer get to experience the exciting parts of dressmaking, just the worst parts. Boo. (She did look so pretty in this dress at the Daffodil Princess Selection Ceremony, though! Still proud of her!)

Rachel Brooke, wearing a light pink formal gown, and her family at the Daffodil Princess selection ceremony

Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler

I really enjoyed working on this. It is FINISHED, but awaiting framing. The frame has even been purchased, but between the Thanksgiving bout of COVID, the Montana funeral chaos and all the schedule upsets that accompanied the Epic Washington State Flooding in December, I haven’t yet gotten to framing it.

Peppermint Blossoms EPP

I think I’m going to scale down this project. I’m tired of it. It’s cute-ish, but I’m just not seeing a vision for it anymore.

Red, Green, and White Peppermint Blossoms English Paper Piecing Quilt units

Hubby’s Christmas Gift Socks: American Flag Socks

They turned out pretty amazing. He loves them! Such a fun yarn colorway, and I’m really enjoying throwing contrasting heels and toes onto self-striping yarn socks. If only I could remember to also do the cuff/ribbing in the contrasting color as well! It makes my heart happy to see another set of socks in his growing pile of gifted Christmas socks.

Handknit socks made with self-striping American Flag yarn from The Painted Tiger.

Knitted Christmas Ornaments

I started both the Wee Woolly Sheep and an Arne & Carlos Christmas Ball, but neither are complete due to the craziness of December. Hopefully I’ll pick them up again and finish them by Christmas 2026.

Wee Woolly Sheep knitted Ornament in-progress, made with gray and white yarn.

Arne & Carlos knit Christmas Ball in-progress, made with blue and white yarn.

Looking Ahead to 2026

I am really hoping to do more creating in 2026. 2025 was a tough year that was spent in a quasi-paralysis as I recovered from the complications of my 2024 surgery, the trauma of the stalker, and adjusting to some big life changes. I have high hopes for 2026 because, really, things should definitely trend upwards after all the weird upsets we’ve experienced recently. The law of averages works that way, right?

So, hopefully, part of the reason that 2026 will be better than 2025 is that I’ll do more creating in the craft room. Fingers crossed!

A Final Stitch for February, a Fresh Thread for March

March 3, 2025Leave a comment

I’m grateful that the end of the grayest month of the year opens the doors for the most hopeful month of the year. We made it, folks! It only gets brighter and greener from here! Whew!

February Finishes & Highlights:

Stripey Christmas Socks
Piscis Project, which I only just gifted to Rachel over the weekend and still haven’t taken pictures of…
Quesnel survived her kidney infection, thanks to our consistent administration of antibiotics twice a day, which is not a task for the faint-hearted
Nathaniel received a Superior rating on the xylophone at Solo Competition
Rachel celebrated her 17th birthday
Nathaniel was awarded the “Rookie of the Year” award for Auto class, which is a CTE award given to freshmen
I managed, with help from other band parents (obviously), to distribute, collect, and award both the Band Senior Scholarship Essay competition and the Annual Headphone Fundraiser Raffle.

February Progress:

King David’s Crown Quilt for Fat Quarter Shop
Star Climber Scrap Quilt
Cherry Twilight socks (secret knitting = no pics!)
Midnight Lark socks (secret knitting = no pics!)

Plans for March:

Quilting the King David’s Crown Quilt, perhaps finishing it altogether
Star Climber Scrap Quilt progress
Cherry Twilight sock progress
Midnight Lark sock progress
Garden preparations
Track Season
Michael’s birthday
Prom prep (Rachel is still deciding whether or not she wants me to sew her dress)
Easter Sacrament Meeting Program prep
Maybe some Easter celebration prep, if time allows

As much as I love to see the door hit February in the butt as it exits the room, I will miss the quieter pace of the last two months of winter hibernation. The sun is shining more and more each day, I actually hear birdsong when I venture outside, and I know that the activities of spring will soon start crowding out my time set aside for crafting. I struggle with this transition every year, trying to figure out how to spend as much time as possible on so many activities that I love for various reasons. Thankfully, I live on the wet side of Washington State, so we are still in for some seriously rainy weather, so darn, I guess I’ll just have to stay inside on those days and catch up on my stitching!

Happy March! Enjoy the return of the sunshine!

Rachel’s Vintage Purple Prom Dress (Vogue 2001)

May 16, 2024May 16, 2024Leave a comment

When Rachel picked the Vogue 2001 pattern for her prom dress, I was elated! I love me a vintage pattern, and thankfully, so does she. I wasn’t sure she’d actually go through with the idea when push came to shove, so I was incredibly pleased that she was committed to some vintage glamour for her first prom.

Pattern

Vogue #2001, only released from the archives this spring. It’s a reprint of a 1941 pattern, and the first time she pointed it out to me I squinted at it because it really looked like a 1930s top smashed up with a 1950s skirt. I actually said, “That top and that skirt don’t go together, what is going on here?!” And then I saw the 1941 publication date and immediately thought about World War 2 fabric rationing and how this pattern did not fit into that idea whatsoever. But then my husband and I figured out that Pearl Harbor happened in December 1941, so American patterns were not adopting a “war rationing” mindset until 1942, probably. I wonder how many women purchased the pattern with the intent to make it and then couldn’t make it because of rationing?

Fabric

Rachel picked out a lavender satin taffeta and a lilac organza from JoAnn Fabric. We needed 11 yards of both because the main eater of yardage in this pattern is the skirt, which is ginormous AND cut double. The pattern doesn’t have instructions for two layers of skirt, but it’s what we wanted to do, so I overcast the waistline of them together and then treated it as one skirt.

Notions

Thread: Good ol’ Coats & Clark Dual Duty All Purpose #3440. I bought two out of caution, even though I never use the second spool, but I did actually need the second spool on this dress.
Zipper: The last lilac-colored invisible zipper in my weird assortment of cast-offs that I ordered from Amazon years ago.
Horsehair Braid: The solid main fabric skirt has a 3-inch horsehair braid in its hem. The circumference of each skirt is 528 inches, so I used almost fifteen yards of horsehair braid. The pattern called for 4-inch horsehair braid, but I had purchased the 3-inch braid years ago on Amazon for a “just in case” moment, and decided to go with that.

Time Spent

I DID actually keep track of how much time I worked on this! I wasn’t able to get to working on this dress until a week before the dance, so I made the decision to “live update” my progress to my friends on Facebook—at the end of every hour of working on the dress I’d snap a picture and type out what I’d accomplished as a comment to that day’s Facebook post about the dress construction. I knew that the public accountability would help me stay focused and have a shot at sewing this up in a week. Little did I know, my Facebook friends started cheering me on and leaving me uplifting comments as well, which really buoyed my spirits as I toiled away in my craft room. I will absolutely use this method of social pressure to help me finish big projects in the future!

Muslin: I wasn’t tracking hours while working on the muslin, so I estimate it took about five hours.
Sewing: 39 hours, according to my Facebook posts.
Total: ~44 hours

Highlights

The fact that Rachel picked out a vintage pattern just made me so happy!
The Facebook live updates and the cheering from friends made this so much more enjoyable to construct.
I did French seams on as much of this as I could and the seams are just so beautiful inside this dress.
I was able to do that whole dart rotation maneuver and transfer some annoying fullness in the upper arm and shoulder area into the bust gathers. I did a new thing and it totally worked!
The narrow hemming of the sheer layer is, by far, the best job I’ve ever done on narrow hemming. I enjoyed that step.
I did cheater gathering with a length of yarn for each quadrant of skirt and it worked beautifully. Highly recommended.

Lowlights

The side seams of the skirts are too short, despite having measured the skirt on her to the ground, so her petticoat showed a little bit. No idea how this happened. Very annoyed.
Kimono sleeves are stupid. That is all.
Holy skirts, Batman! Cutting out the skirt sections was a logistical concern. No matter where I went in my house there wasn’t enough room to lay it out in one run so I had to shift the fabric and pattern for each skirt to continue marking it. That brought some challenges, but I got through it.
I bought a hooped petticoat to go underneath this and even had Rachel try it all on with the hooped petticoat, but she hated how it felt to have the skirts held away from her legs and refused to wear it. Which was too bad because I think the skirt was more impressive with the hooped petticoat beneath it. She ended up going with a tulle petticoat and a flounced petticoat over the tulle to smooth things out.

I really love this dress and I’m so glad I had the opportunity to make it for my girl. We bought a book that showed how to do 1940s makeup and hair so she could go with the complete 1940s vibe. She did her makeup beautifully, and I am not known for my hairstyling skills so the hair was a little less than hoped for, but whatever, it worked…enough.

Renaissance informed me that Rachel’s dress was a star of the show the entire night. Girls were coming up to her over and over again to exclaim how much they loved her dress and how it was like a fairytale princess gown and how much they wished they had one like it. Now that I know how much work goes into constructing those precious princess ballgown skirts, I get why they’re not offered in your typical off-the-rack dance dresses. Whew! I’m glad she got to feel special at the dress in her dress! Who knows, the trauma may wear off just enough by next year for me to consider making another one for her…

Links to all posts about Rachel’s Vintage Purple Prom Dress

Church Spring Formal 2024

May 12, 2024May 13, 20242 Comments

I did manage to finish Rachel’s dress in time—11:30 that morning, to be exact—and Renaissance was able to finish adding bling to her dress—at 3:00pm that day, after a two hour gem-gluing session with Emily, herself and me—so all the dress dreams became a reality for the Church Spring Formal. I threw their hair into some updos, fretted over shoes and petticoats, and we were on our way! Their dates looked great, and I think everyone had a good time. We had dinner at my granny and aunt’s house because it was near the dance and we knew that Granny would love to see the dresses. It was a nice evening.

And now, I think I’m going to take a little break from my sewing machine…it’s been a wild two months of non-stop sewing! I’m so pleased with how they turned out and so glad that my girls liked them. Happy memories.

Prom Dress Crunch Time 2.0

May 10, 20241 Comment

I am so sorry that I have not been updating for the past two weeks, but I had to get going on Rachel’s prom dress for the church spring formal, which is taking place this weekend. It has been NON-STOP SEWING around here, often taking 8-10 hours a day of focused construction on this beast of a dress! I have had no time for anything else—the girls have been making dinners and I am running low on clean clothes, my friends! But it’s coming together, it is GORGEOUS and we are getting close to being done. I’ll be back next week with spring formal pictures and, hopefully, detailed posts about both the Celestial Purple Prom Dress (which friends named the “Swoopy Mermaid Dress”) AND the Vintage Purple Prom Dress (which I have named the “Lilac Behemoth” because the skirt on this thing, guys…wow.

I am currently in the midst of flipping the horsehair braid under the skirt and sewing it down, and then all I have left to worry about is the side zipper. I was hoping I could add some embellishments to the bodice, but I think I’m going to run out of time on that aspiration. There’s going to be A LOT of sewing happening in the next twenty-four hours! I was so jazzed when Rachel picked out Vogue 2001 because, FINALLY, a vintage dress pattern! What I failed to recognize was the sheer mass of skirt this thing has and how much time would be needed to just cut the skirts out. Well, that, and the fact that I threw a sheer overskirt into the mix as well…there’s twenty-two yards of fabric in those skirts combined. The skirt circumference on this thing is 528 inches. Big skirt. Super big skirt. Insanity of the highest degree. And then multiply that by two. Go big or go home. See you in a few days with spring formal pics!

Prom 2024

April 28, 2024October 29, 20245 Comments

The big day has come and gone and Renaissance’s dress was finished the evening before and Rachel’s backup dress actually fit. Success! Oh, they looked beautiful. My baby girls went and got all grown up.

They had a great time at prom, and it was wonderful watching them be excited for and enjoying the evening. My heart is full.

I’ll post details on Renaissance’s dress in the next few days.

On the Eve of Prom

April 26, 2024April 26, 20241 Comment

Hello dear ones, and welcome to the last day before prom and all of its craziness in the world of dressmaking! I feel like I have hardly left the craft room all week long, logging an average of eight hours per day working on Renaissance’s dress. (Keep in mind that from 2:30pm onwards, I generally have no say over how my day goes because it’s all chauffeuring and music lessons and dinner prep and cleanup.) I have had some very long days this week!

Top priorities this past week:

Finishing Renaissance’s prom dress
Starting Rachel’s church prom dress, if possible

Creativity

The weather has cooperated with me this week and was mostly rainy and gray, which makes me feel entirely NOT guilty for staying inside and sewing all day, ha ha ha. I got the skirt attached correctly to Renaissance’s dress and went about my merry way with attaching the lining to the bodice, sewing in the sleeves (which, if I may say, I did an excellent job on the sleeves!), and then hemming the skirts.

Marking the hem of this dress was a memory I’ll keep, and not for any particularly memorable reason. It was just nice to spend that time with Renaissance, amidst the flurry of a busy day, where she got to put on her dress for the first time and we were able to ooh and aah over it and let the excitement build. If you’re looking to strengthen the upper half of your posterior muscle chain, I highly recommend marking hems on skirts. I’m sure there’s an easier way to do it, but I had to lay on my stomach and keep my head and shoulders lifted for thirty minutes while I measured and marked the entirety of the hem. I was sore the next day!

I am hoping I can get in and redo the top skirt’s hem because it’s looking “homemade” in a bad way. After scrutinizing it I decided to change my approach on the bottom skirt’s hem and sew it by hand and I think it’s looking much better. It just takes forever. I’ve got about 12-14 inches left to hem, which will take 30-45 minutes. I still need to trim the top skirt because it’s dragging on the one side, so I’ll do that by hand tonight and then I’ll unpick and re-hem by hand portions of the top skirt until I either finish it or run out of time.

Thank goodness I found a backup dress for Rachel. I have had no time whatsoever to even begin working on her dress.

Gardening

In brief moments of time away from the prom dress, I cleaned out my countertop garden. It had reached 100 days of growing and most of the plants had died off, but the three basil plants were still going strong. It was the first time I’ve cleaned it out and discovered that you definitely want to remove any spent pods when they die because if you don’t, the roots will start rotting and molding underwater, which made for a lot of unpleasantness.

I harvested the last of my basil plants and made pesto for a soup I made during the week. Unfortunately, the basil plants had passed the point of maturity and the pesto ended up tasting exceptionally “green.” It’s such a delicate dance of allowing the basil leaves to get large enough, but not so large that their flavor starts to mimic lawn grass.

Caring

Nathaniel had his first home cross country meet this week, and it works out that it starts right after Renaissance’s oboe lesson ends, and her oboe lesson is at his school, so she just walked on over and we cheered him on. I’m so proud of him. Last summer he realized it would be easier to be healthy if he became a runner, so he decided to join track and cross country. He’s literally in it just for the exercise.

Well, I wish you a happy Friday and ensuing weekend and look forward to sharing prom photos with you next week. (I need to remember to charge my camera’s batteries!) Cross your fingers that I can finish up Ren’s dress to a “good homemade” level!

Prom Dress Crunch Time

April 22, 20241 Comment

The high school prom will be THIS Saturday! I think I’ll be good to finish Renaissance’s dress. I made an atrocious error on it on Saturday, so I’ve spent this morning seam ripping the entire skirt so I could re-attach it correctly. I am normally really good about going through a pattern’s instructions beforehand and highlighting any weird steps so I don’t make mistakes during construction, but I managed to miss reading a very important moment when I was supposed to sew the right side of the skirt to the wrong side of the lining, and ended up sewing right sides together which resulted in the skirt being sewn on inside-out. Joy of joys. I’ve atoned for my mistake and unpicked the two rows of sewing AND the row of hand basting, and then did them all over again. Yep, winning.

Note to self: For future sewing, look for any steps that deviate from the default “right sides together” and highlight the heck out of them.

Another prom-related development happened on Friday: A mom in Ren’s friend group texted the group chat and asked where everyone wanted to eat dinner for prom, we weighed in, and she texted us back saying that a reservation for four had been successfully made. I had been under the impression that the one friend wasn’t going to go to the high school prom, so I turned to Rachel and asked her if she knew who he was going to prom with and she said, “Me.”

My mouth dropped, my shoulders caved, my eyes widened, “What?!?”

Rachel, upon seeing the change in my posture, got a deer-in-the-headlights look on her face, “I forgot to tell you, didn’t I? He asked yesterday and we bought the tickets today.”

I spent the next two hours working on Ren’s dress and mulling over the logistics of finishing that dress AND Rachel’s dress in a week, and ultimately decided to send out an SOS to friends to see if anyone had a dress that Rachel could borrow for the high school prom because I highly doubt I can pull off finishing both dresses in time. A few people responded, for which I am so, so grateful!

A back-up dress has been secured, it is less modest than I normally would consider, but at the end of the day no one will die and the world will continue to turn. Rachel is thrilled because she’s always wanted to wear a dress with this neckline but has had the good sense to not push for something like it, so everyone is relatively happy.

So this week will be all about finishing up Ren’s dress and getting a head start on Rachel’s dress for the church formal. I’ll post if I have time, but don’t surprised if I don’t.

Well, That Was Unfortunate Timing

April 15, 2024April 15, 2024Leave a comment

Nathaniel was sick for the entirety of Spring Break, and on Saturday I woke up feeling…off. Michael took Ren to the school for Daffodil Parades so I could get my energy up and meet them at one of the later parades, but within a few hours it was very clear that I had caught Nathaniel’s bug and was out of the running for anything beyond laying on the couch and watching television through bleary eyes. And so it went for the remainder of last week. And this last weekend. And today. I am having a heck of a time with this illness.

I’m hoping the exhaustion and relentless coughing starts to fade this week because I was supposed to finish Ren’s prom dress last week and this was the week to start working on Rachel’s dress. Stress levels are high.

Cooking

This week’s meal plan:

Saturday: Chicken Shawarma
Sunday: Cheesy Ham and Potatoes for Nathaniel’s birthday
Monday: Dino Nuggets, French Fries, Mixed Vegetables
Tuesday: Crockpot Chili & Baked Potatoes
Wednesday: Cheeseburgers, Spiced Braised Rhubarb
Thursday: Crockpot Honey Chicken
Friday: Salad Bar

Clothing

Catching up after missing all of last week’s laundry.

Cleaning

Catch up, basic upkeep.

Caring

Renaissance passed her driver’s license test last week! There’s still a lot of paperwork to get her driving legally on her own, and it is a high priority this week. I am really looking forward to this development.
Rachel is taking her driver’s license knowledge test later this week, so helping her study for that.
Emily, possibly spurred on by the success of her younger sisters in the driver’s license department, has finally renewed her driving permit and is now legal to start practicing for her own driver’s license, so I imagine I need to start making time for her practicing, too.
Need to figure out a way to get the bridal shower and wedding gifts to the young woman who got married last week. I was too sick to go and she and her husband have headed back to school already.
We need to sit down with Renaissance and figure out her post-high school plans. She’s received news of the various scholarships she’s been awarded, the FAFSA is taking forever to process, and we just need to sit down and crunch numbers. Her high school is having their Decision Day soon where they celebrate kids’ post-high school plans, so it’d be good if she knew what she was doing by that date.

Creativity

Prom Dresses: I haven’t touched either of them since I got sick. So much work needs to be done this week. The extra yard of silk for Ren’s sleeves arrived safely last week, so we’re good to go there. I have two weeks’ less time to get Ren’s dress done because last night she got a text to look outside:

How cute is that?!?! Why weren’t Promposals a thing when we were young? He had good timing; we were just getting ready to have Nathaniel’s birthday cake, so he walked away from the incident with a prom date and birthday cake. On a frenzied prom dress-sewing note, though…the high school prom is two weeks before the church Spring Formal, so…I really need to sew faster.

Van Crafting Sessions™: I think I have a full schedule of music lessons this week and I have no idea what I’m going to do while I’m at them.

Gardening

The rhubarb is growing fast! Gotta start using it.
I didn’t do any planting last week, so I need to do both last week’s and this week’s planting and seed starting. We’re getting into the thick of planting season!

Celebrating

Nathaniel had his 14th birthday yesterday! I can’t believe my youngest child is starting high school next year. Where have the years gone?!?! Renaissance made him a Sherman Tank cake this year, in homage to his interest in World War 2.
Upcoming celebrations include:
- Mother’s Day, which I don’t have to do anything for
- My birthday, which I generally don’t have to do anything for
- Memorial Day, which just means grilling some hot dogs and doing yardwork
- Ren’s graduation, which is going to take a ton of work
- Father’s Day, which I will also have to do work for.

I’m going to wait a bit before I get going on anything so I can focus on prom dresses.

Community

Band Parent meeting this week, with all the requisite paperwork and follow-up that goes with it.
There’s a Ward Potluck on the calendar from the email that the bishop sent out at the beginning of the year, but I’ve not heard anything else about it since, so I’m thinking it never materialized.
There’s a Relief Society activity this week about simplifying our lives, but it’s happening at the same time as a music lesson, so I probably won’t go.
Band performance for the seniors.

Alright, a big week with a lot of catch-up and I’m not feeling that great to begin with. Wish me luck! And look at this great photo of Renaissance in the Daffodil Parade, taken by a friend of a friend: