Springtime Sewing

Cotillion is this Friday.  I finished the alterations to everyone's clothes this week.  The boys' tuxedos needed the length in the legs shortened.  My dress was a little long in the back.  It has a bustle with a lace edge all around the bottom, so a simple hem didn't seem to be an option for me.  While my mom, sister and mother-in-law were here for Easter last week, I tried on the dress and asked for their suggested solutions since I could not see the back of the dress while wearing it.  The common idea revolved around adjusting the bustle near the top.  I searched online for some technical help, but I've found that the more technical the fix is, people only provide pictures and it doesn't help the novice in the slightest.  Instead, I improvised and used my noodle.  Overall I knew that fixing the bustle at the top would put strain of the entire dress bottom in only two spots, potentially causing tears, and it potentially would hinder the zipper down the middle of the dress.  I opted to take up two lower points and pinched fabric and tacked it in place to create two extra bubbles near the bottom edge of what was already there.  That didn't cover the entire length of what I needed to adjust, so I also measured out 4-12" lengths of matching ribbon, tacked those in place about 12" apart so that I could have adjustable bustles near the bottom/side that would blend with the dress.

The tied ribbons are normally hidden in the folds of the bustle, but I've pulled them out to show how it works.

This shows the difference of length if the bow is tied as short as it will go.

After the "have-to" of Cotillion sewing was over, I turned to a project I found on Pinterest.  I like the idea of taking something I don't use anymore and turning into something useful. The pattern is for a washable Swiffer pad.    I have some old towels in the top of my closet that are begging to be used again.  This project seemed like a perfect match!  I cut out a pattern from wax paper, cut my towels, everything matched.  The sewing machine groaned under the load of the heavy towels, but managed quite fine and I took it slow.  I got to the point of fastening it on the Swiffer itself yesterday and discovered a problem.

Pattern pinned to cut towels.

Sewing

Do you see my obstacle?  My pattern is for a Swiffer withOUT the Wet Jets!!!

I improvised once again after pinning my pad to the mop to mark the buttonholes.  I marked places for the jets too, thinking that I could just make large buttonholes for them.  Well, my machine doubly didn't like making buttonholes through the towels.  The feed dog just wouldn't carry the towels.  I was too afraid to manually move the material and it was too difficult to mark the edges of the holes with pencil on the terry cloth.  I put the cart before the horse and cut first and reinforced with stitches later.  Viola!

Ugly cuts for jets

Finished pad

I've put the machine away.  Maybe I'll get it out again next Spring.  :)