I definitely can say that I am a frustrated craftswoman. My overextended life makes it hard for me to satisfy those feelings.
The last few months, I have been following a number of craft, sewing and knitting / crocheting blogs. When I was younger, my mom taught me how to sew on this old Singer sewing machine that had – like 2 stitches – straight and zig zag. My mom often made my sister Denise and I our Christmas, Easter and other outfits. We were dressed like twins and I can remember it drove us crazy.
So, Andrea from The Train to Crazy blog has some of the nicest PDF patterns that she sells. Looking at her most recent ones, I began to get the itch to see if I could take the machine out again and makes some things for the summer. This weekend I finally had some time to cut out the pattern and material and give it a try! I chose to make something for Amalia first because she is growing and for the first time in her life, she doesn’t fit into any of the hand-me-downs we have gotten from our cousins and friends.
The Anywhere Dress looked like a good place to start. The pattern is really flexible and there (literally) are about 5 seams! Moreover, because it is done in a knit fabric, there is no hand sewing / zippers / buttons / buttonholes and …in my version, no sleeves to set in. Yes, I totally was trying to get back into sewing slowly.
It came out okay…I definitely am out of practice in doing the edging and there are some places where the thread is more noticeable than I would like, but she loved it.
I got the material at Wal*Mart on sale. It was $1 a yard and for $1.50 I should be able to get this dress and a skirt for Addison out of it.
The hem line is a little more “wavy” than I would like but I think that is because the stitch length was too short on the knit fabric- but next time I might just leave the hem undone…since with knits they won’t fray…
It also could be a little more fitted, I think I might let her wear a belt with it the next time she wears it.
Overall, she loves it, it was easy and even if it doesn’t last…almost nothing lasts with her – tomboy that she is.
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4 Kids + 1 Momma = Chaos 
This pattern is great to work with! We have done several mixing up patterned fabrics and solids, short sleeves and longer sleeves. I am glad you got your machine out! You can do it! Sometimes practicing the stitch length on a scrap of fabric will help you get it right. Enjoy.
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