First Quarter Finish Number 1

I guess that I'll have to admit that I'm pretty useless at this blogging business.  I only seem to post when I have a finish to report, and that's a pretty rare occurrence.  Still, at least I have a finish this quarter, which is one more than last quarter.

This finish was actually more challenging than I had expected.  I had said in my goals posting that I would be finishing dresses for the girls as part of Kid's Clothes Week.  I'd purchased the pattern (McCall's M6388--discontinued) and traced it.  I'd purchased the fabric and notions.  Easy peasy. 

 Only it wasn't.  The fabric I'd chosen was much too stiff for the pattern.  I didn't have time to order more, so I dug through my collection and found one with more drape that met the all important  "pink or purple" requirement.  Bonus--it had a tiny bit of sparkle to it.  The fabric was a knit rather than a woven, so I needed to take some extra care while sewing.  One advantage of using the knit fabric is that the dress can now just be pulled on.  And, since Elyse is never without leggings, I made it more of a tunic length than a dress length.

Then I had to face another challenge--after I saw how the first one fit, I decided that grading this dress down to Keira's much smaller size was going to take too long if I intended to finish within the week, so I dug out another pattern

 

 from my pattern box, and got to work. The issue here is that the pattern is for a top and skirt and I needed to convert it to a dress that was similar to the first one.  While I was about it, I made a few other alterations, removing the zip (because what three-year-old can do up a back zip) and changing the trim, which is a bit over the top.  

In the end, both girl's  are happy with their new sparkly pink dresses.  If the sun ever comes out, I'll try again for a better picture.

 
 I still didn't manage to make these within the week, though.  The next KCW is coming up in April, and I swear I'm going to post a finish.  For now, I'm content to be able to count the first dress toward the 2014 Finish-Along.  I'm not going to count the second one, since I had to start that one from scratch after the start of the quarter.