It's Not Easy Sewing Green

Last month I made a list of the best things about staying home. Number 7 on the list was wearing T-shirts and jeans every day.

Okay, I'm now officially tired of all my T-shirts. I'm ready to go back to wearing dresses! But I want new dresses. Not the same jumpers I've been wearing over and over again for the last two or three years, mostly from the same pattern. That means I'd best get sewing.


I hadn't touched the green batik dress since... yikes, since April 16?!?. Oh, my heavens. Where in the world is the time going?!?

Well, more masks, of course. Most don't take long, thank heavens. There was another request from a nurse in the neighborhood. I am still getting requests from family members as their states open back up. My daughter requested Colorado Rockies fabric I'd used for a pair of shorts for her when she was a child. That took some digging through the ancient stash!

Then my brother asked for Dallas Cowboys. I had a tiny bit of that fabric left because of him (he's THE Cowboy fan of the family), so it was fitting to use the last of it for his mask. His wife's name is Rose; making that fabric choice a no-brainer.






When I finally sat down to cut out the bodice and sleeves from the darkest green Kona solid, there was not enough fabric. NO!!! I was so... oh, I can't even think of a word to describe what I felt. I had to walk away for a while. It looks like I required four weeks of simmering to begin problem-solving again.

After I cut the bodice and sleeves from the Glacier Kona, one of my nieces asked for masks for her family, and her husband requested Miami Dolphins because he'd seen the Dallas Cowboys and Colorado Rockies masks. Look, I'm NOT a professional sports fabric store!!! Yes, I had a few pieces leftover from a few projects, but I don't have every team!!! I don't want every team!!! Ha ha ha!

The Glacier Kona probably is as close as I can get to Dolphin colors. So now the Glacier is all gone. Just like that.

I didn't have enough width for the mask, so I had to get creative. Definitely the most time-consuming mask I've made so far. And to the rest of the guys in my family, don't get any ideas!!! (Just teasing. I'd do whatever my family asks. I love them all.)


My niece wanted music or sunflowers. I have both. There was barely enough of the music fabric from back when my now-grown kids were in middle school band and would still wear clothing I made for them. I made a reversible mask for my niece with the leftover pieces, and now I have no more unused rainbow music scraps in any of my scrap bins.

Their daughter likes anything girly and pink and/or purple. I had plenty to fit that order and actually had difficulty selecting just one fabric. Maddie could have been the most fashionable girl in her day care (mom's an essential health worker). I could have made a different mask for my grandniece for every day of the week. Maybe even for a month!




I confess I've had a ton of fun reliving memories while going through stash for various mask requests. I can proudly say I did not hoard toilet paper and I did not hoard hand sanitizer. Fabric and yarn, however... is that hoarding? Or is is just addiction???

There were so many fabrics I didn't remember buying, and there are so many fabrics I don't remember why I bought them. It felt a bit like walking through a fabric store, only better because I could touch all the preciouses!


After finishing off my most recent bunch of masks, I finally decided to use the second dark green Kona solid for facings and pockets. I had already planned to use a fabric I don't like for the pockets because they aren't going to show anyway. There was enough Fern Kona solid for everything I needed, so I cut all the rest of the missing pieces from that. The facings and pockets aren't going to show, but they match! And now I have very little Fern left.




Finally, it was time for the pièce de résistance.






I had decided months ago, before I even knew there would be no button-shopping trips in my spring future, not to use oversized buttons for this dress.


I toyed with the idea of crocheting motifs to appliqué in place of buttons, perhaps even using some of my hand-dyed thread to accomplish the task.






Ultimately I decided to use a Dresden template to use up some of the smaller green batik leftovers. After assembling about five petals, I realized this "flower" would be bigger than I had visualized, and a couple of times, I even wondered if I should start over and make this gigantic Dresden into a pillow or a quilt block. I played with placement a bit and decided to go ahead and finish it, then use it if it fit on the bodice.

Now comes the chore of picking a color for the center!


I narrowed my 26 options down to the two handpaints I liked best. I think I'm going to go with the purple.




I think this is going to be my new favorite dress. Once again, I'm wondering if I will have a place to wear it, but I've also decided it's okay to dress up while working from home. Maybe I might even catch Lizard's eye... Wink, wink!

And what do you do with all those tiny little Dresden scraps? Well, you start yet another quilt project, of course.


Linking up with Alycia Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

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