Deadlines

So, here I am, with a dozen unfinished projects, and instead of working on them, I am blogging about working on them. Doesn't that make sense? This is my thought: stating my intentions helps me follow through. Ergo, blogging about the things I want to do, will hopefully help me follow through on them. And who knows, maybe someone will stumble across this and be inspired, or at least entertained.

First up, we have sugar flowers and a princess dress.

First the flowers, because this is the only photo I have of them. These flowers are my destiny, because I got all inspired, bought the stuff, got this far, and gave up because they kept breaking. I had not completely given up, I just stopped looking at them, in hopes that the gumpaste fairy would come along and finish them for me. Then, the whole kit and caboodle got knocked on the floor by this handsome fellow:

The flowers are my fate because, miraculously, nothing broke when it fell. That's right: the pieces were breaking as I attempted to assemble them, but survived a five-foot fall without incident. Not only that, but my husband, in a rather uncharacteristic move, noticed and picked them all up for me. So I'm going to have to work on those this weekend. They're supposed to be for my daughter's birthday cake, one month from now. I've come up with ideas for a cake way beyond my level of experience & "expertise" but still want to attempt it, so I'll have my work cut out for me. I'll give more details as I have photos to accompany them.

On to the dress! Here is what I have finished so far:

For about a month and a half, I've had all the pieces cut out, and the bodice basted, but got frustrated with trying to figure out how to get it to turn properly and, like the flowers, stopped looking at it in hopes it might turn itself. It didn't, and with Halloween rapidly approaching, I decided I had to get my act together or it wouldn't be finished in time for my little princess to wear it. So yesterday I finished everything except the hem at the bottom, and tacking down those little black flappy bits at the shoulders (it's actually sleeveless).

I'm pretty proud of the princess neckline. It's hard to see, but you can kind of make it out, right? I know it's not much of an accomplishment in and of itself, but I didn't have a pattern to help me, just measured my girl and started sketching. I also made it solely from scraps of fabric I had left over from other projects, which was a bit of an ordeal. On at least two occasions, I thought I had ruined it because I had to cut each piece perfectly, no room for spare pieces. But I managed to make it work. See how the back hem comes down to a point? This is because I cut two left sides, so I sewed the outsides together and let it be a little pseudo-train.  That seam near the bottom of the gold center panel is where I didn't have a long enough piece of fabric, so I'm covering it with a decoration of those little fuzzy flowers and leaves on the black fabric. I cut several out to attach to the gold and cover the seam. Probably with glue... Necessity is indeed the mother of invention, or at least, ingenuity.

This is the pattern that will cover the seam. Here are all the pieces separately:

I seem to always end up making things complicated, but I just can't help myself.

In order to make this blog a little more useful to whoever might come upon it, I'll go ahead and put up a pattern & instructions for the dress, as soon as I can get them set up. Don't hold your breath, but I will try to be expedient.