Double Trouble: Sewing Playdate

Here are Holly and Mira posing in their new dresses. Mai came up with the greatest play date idea ever!  Kids play, Mommies sew.  I had been talking about my new sewing area and how excited I was about it, and Mai has been asking to come over and see it.  So finally the stars aligned and touting a bag of fabric and sewing book Mai came over to play.... I mean Mira ;-)  Holly was excited to show Mira her dress-up area down stairs, but I think the girls had the most fun doing art projects.  Especially when it came to cutting and gluing.  I have a collection of buttons, beads and do-hickeys Holly can glue onto colored paper and the girls came up with tons of creative uses and made lots of art for us.

Speaking of being creative, after looking through Mai's sewing book we were inspired by these Pillow Case dresses she had read about on the Internet.  Holly had picked out this neat Turtle and Alligator Fabric that reminded her of Hawaii and I thought that would be perfect to use for matching dresses.  As I only had a yard, we cut the fabric in half and created the "pillow case" base which we used to make the dresses.  Mai is very meticulous and I am much more haphazard.  As a result much of what I do is pretty sloppy, I didn't even know what Bias Tape was, and when Mai asked where I went to Iron down the hems I had to tell her I didn't even own an Iron of pins for that matter and folded my hems on the fly.

That said, all of her preparation and planning often leaves her with little time to start let alone complete all of her great sewing project ideas.  So for today's play date we decided to jump right in, on the fly and create on the go.  I went first so we could work out the kinks of the design on my dress.  Then Mai, without even Ironing or Pinning sewed up her dress.  They were adorable, but I felt like something was missing.  I had this really cool green fabric that had a watery feel to it so I decided we should add a ruffle.  I think it completed the dress and was so cute. 

We simply added a knife please to the bottom and using the foot of mt machine to measure out each pleat I did the ruffle on the fly.  I was even a little nervous this time as I usually sew front side facing so I can turn it out and the seems are hidden but since we already had a cute hem I thought it would be nice to add the ruffle behind the hem.  Though while sewing I couldn't see what I was doing as well as usually due to how the fabric laid, so I was being adventuresome and trying something new.  It took a little longer the expected but I think the ruffle turned out great and the girls now have matching dresses.  and I might add the fabric is soft and cuddly, it is a fleece and it was only 2.99 a yard, we used a yard of the Hawaii and maybe a 1/3 of the green, so we basically got two dresses for about 4$ and our time of course.

But an afternoon hanging out, chatting, and playing with a friend hardly seemed like work at all.  We have a ton of idea's for the next sewing play date.  Mai is definitely the inspiration on all the things she wants to try and I am the push out the door so to speak to simply jump in and try it.  Although she has convinced me that the few minutes it takes to iron the hem or use the Bias Tape for a nice edge is certainly worth the effort as our designs get more complicated and we want to do more advanced dresses.  So in addition to getting more thread, bobbins, and zippers, I will be shopping for an Iron too.

I think there is a shopping play date to the fabric store in our future as well.