Felicity Dress, Take 3 In Progress

This is my third time making Jennifer Lauren's Felicity Dress. I absolutely LOVE the second one I made--the first one, not so much!--and of all my handmade stuff, it's probably the piece I wear the most.

I have a couple of fun events to attend this summer, and a new dress for those get togethers sounded like a lovely plan! But rather than go through the arduous task of buying one RTW, I opted to make my own, and friends, it has been the best sort of idea. I was under a bit of a time crunch though, so rather than try (and possibly fail) with a new pattern, I opted to make a third Felicity dress.

It was an easy call, especially since I am still in the process of losing baby weight. Since I can currently fit into my other Felicity dress which was made pre-Vanilla, I knew that a third would still fit me when I've lost the baby weight. Also, the pattern was already cut out and marked, and that right there was a huge time-saver.

I ordered this super yummy lawn from Cotton + Steel--the line is specifically Hatbox--but it was going to be way too shear to wear solo, so I opted to line it with a muslin. I would still consider myself a beginning apparel-sewist, and I'm not too knowledgeable about the different types of lining fabrics. Because of that, the fabric I picked out is probably too structured for this lawn, or so I worried, but after sewing it up, I actually like the body it lends to the lawn. It gives the dress a bit more oomph and polish, and while it was completely accidental, I'm thankful for the accident!

My dress was all sewn up with the exception of the bottom hem when I went to try it on. I found with both of my previous versions of the Felicity dress that I needed to gather the neckline substantially more than is called for to make it lie flat and even on my chest. I accounted for that when I was sewing this version up, but after trying on the dress, I realized I still hadn't gathered enough, and so I need to rip out the binding fabric and gather the neckline again. Hopefully that fix will finish off this dress.

(And can I just say that I'm none too excited about this bit? The awesome lining fabric plus the lawn make gathering a tricky task.)

I did hem the bottom (obviously after this photo was taken) so once the neckline is finished, this dress will be ready to go! I'm really *really* excited to see this one done, and I'm even more excited to wear it this summer.

OH! And on looking up the Felicity Dress page while writing this post, I discovered that Jennifer Lauren has released a free skirt expansion, and I'm SO excited! I've been wanting to make some skirts for awhile now, and I've been eyeing the Cleo Skirt pattern by Made by Rae because it's cute and it has POCKETS. I may still wind up buying the Cleo pattern, but first I'm going to try this, especially since it also has pockets! (I kinda feel all dresses and skirts should have pockets.)

SS: Some Pretties!

There have been a few additions to my stash in the last couple of weeks, and I thought I'd share them with you. Did you know that they are making a Grunge Dot now? Oh la la, I love it in every color. I was responsible and only purchased it in three--and two of those are for specific projects!--but I had to buy some of that raspberry because it called and I couldn't say no.

I also picked up some Tokyo Train Ride by Sarah Watts for a commissioned 241 tote. I am all sorts of excited to be working on this! The first print is a canvas for the outside, and I thought the other two prints would make some good accent touches.

Finally, I won a super awesome giveaway from @bespokeoutlaw on instagram. I knew it was going to be exciting, and I just knew everything inside the package would be yummy, but what I didn't know was how pretty it was going to be all wrapped up! I didn't want to open it!

But then again, I did, and this is what lay inside. Isn't all of that super yum??? It was such a lovely giveaway, and I am so thankful!

I'm linking up with Molli over at Sunday Stash!

Coast to Coast Traveling Bee Quilt 3

It's fun to think that these quilts from the Coast to Coast Traveling Bee were started late last year, and here we are in May. This is the third quilt I've had the pleasure of working on, meaning I'm more than halfway through now. Two more to go!

Summer started off her quilt with the awesome center medallion, then bordered it with the big HSTs and triangles. Her color palette was fun, and her directions fairly open, so I went to work, thinking of what I could contribute to this quilt that would be my own something, but would compliment the work of the other awesome quilters who have already handled this.

I am thoroughly enjoying myself in this bee. It's pushing me, but in a very good way. I'm being challenged to work outside my usual style and contribute to art that has been manipulated and teased about by other different artists. They have their strengths and styles, and I have to determine what about me will be the perfect contribution to each quilt. It's made for some very different ideas (check out Alison and Susan's quilts!) but I like each a whole lot!

Sometimes finding the perfect something takes a lot of thinking time. And in this case, it also took a lot of quilty math.

And this is what I came up with! Summer mentioned HSTs, so I figured pretty early I would use some of those to tie it back to the HSTs in the center, but I was going to wind up with some crazy fractions if I tried to get the HSTs to work with a 43.75" side, so I opted to add the border of squares to the top and bottom to bring it up to 48.5", a measurement that is much more HST friendly.

I took inspiration from Melissa's Royal Quilt from Happy Quilting. I love her play of the two different sizes of HSTs, and that's where I got the idea to use two different sizes in my addition to this quilt.

And if you're wondering what's going on with my quilt, well, check it out! Summer had my quilt this round, so it was fun watching her work on mine as I worked on hers! I would never have imagined it going this direction, and it's so. much. fun. to watch where each person has taken it. I hope you're enjoying following our progress. If you're on instagram, check out #coasttocoasttravelingbee for more pics.