And speaking of clothes made of curtains...

We were watching Sound of Music tonight, and I wondered: Maria makes the von Trapps one set of play clothes from the curtains, but where do the other ones come from? In the "Do, Re, Mi" sequence, they all wear a few sets of clothes, but the housekeeper only gave Maria enough to make dresses for herself. Where'd she get the rest of the fabric? Was it a pre-Tim Gunn, "Make it work" moment?

Chinese Lantern Skirt

I saw this skirt in Threads Magazine and was intrigued. It looked pretty easy, very comfortable, and fun and stylish. I've never cut anything (deliberately) on the bias, so it was a new technique I wanted to try.

I got some grey silky jersey from Fabric.com and the Chinese Lantern Pattern from Fashion in Harmony and was good to go. There are only 2 pattern pieces, 3 pieces of fabric and 5 seams. The hardest part is finding enough space to cut out the fabric.

The picture doesn't really do it justice. The fabric is gorgeous, very 40's film star, and the bias cut makes it drape beautifully. I didn't make a drawstring waist, I just used elastic.

I can see wearing this with a t-shirt and flats for running around or with a nicer shirt and heels for a date night or something fancier.

It took me about an hour to sew, even with my learning curve for my narrow-hem foot. I might have to find some other fun fabric and make another one.

Bedsheet Shirt

Not all my projects turn out well. I really only like to talk about the good ones, but trust me when I say I have my own share of failure. Sometimes I just give up and sometimes I have enough gumption (or stupidity and raw materials) to try again.

I had a bunch of cotton broadcloth in a neat black/teal/pink/white design from a project I never started. I figured I'd finally get on the tunic/leggings trend that's been going around and decided to make a long shirt. I found Simplicity 2255 and got started.

Everything was going well until I tried to put the collar on. I couldn't get everthing to line up properly and some sailor-blushing words started coming out of my mouth. I figured I'd cut something, like the buttonhole facing or front pieces, wrong, so I increased my seam allowance (which meant re-doing the hem, due to the pattern) a little. Still no go. I threw it all in the trash.

For some reason, I didn't want to let this fairly easy pattern go without another try. I didn't want to go out and buy a bunch of new fabric in case things didn't work out again. So I looked at what I already had.

And what I already had was a sheet set. I was going to use the flat sheet as a quilt backing, but I had the fitted sheet and pillowcase left over. I cut the elastic off the fitted sheet and cut out my pattern pieces. I eventually figured out that I'd cut the actuall pattern piece for the collar out wrong, so I re-traced it, re-cut it, and had a success.

I really like it. It's very comfortable and flattering. There are 2 bust seams and 2 back seams, so there's enough shaping to look good, but not so much you feel squished. I'm a little stumped on how to style it. With black leggings and a black belt, I feel a little 80's, but not in the modern way (is that an oxymoron?). I still have the pillowcase, so I might make a tie belt and some carriers and see how I like it.

It's not quite making clothes out of the curtains, but it was definitely a creative use of my stash.

Chocolate Cherry Cake

This cake is delicious and easy. And gorgeous and impressive. And people will love you for it.

It's the Chocolate-Covered Cherry Cake from Beki Cooks Cake blog. Her taste test on fondant was interesting and helpful. I don't use fondant, but maybe I'll start branching out.

For my cake, I baked the batter in 2 8" rounds, chopped up some of the extra maraschino cherries for the filling and used a buttercream icing mix, which had meringue powder already in it.

My ganache topping wasn't as smooth as hers, but I was more interested in getting the "drips" right than smoothing out the top. It gives it... character, right?

When my friends took their first bite, there was no sound but muffled "mmmmm"s in the room. I love the chocolate/vanilla buttercream combination and the ganache and cherries added even more texture and dimension. I almost cried when I ate the last piece the other day.

Robot Dress

As I've mentioned before, both my girls love robots. We've gone from Wall-E to Transformers, which means Star Wars can't be far behind.

My girls are also girly-girls, which means sparkly shoes, dresses and twirly dresses. The combination is all sorts of awesome and I hope it lasts.

I found some adorable pink and orange robot fabric (called I Heart Robots) and knew I had to make a dress out of it. I found a really cute Simplicity/Project Runway pattern and went to work.























I love it, and The Bean loves it. The Belly is going through a phase where she only wants to wear, like, 3 dresses, so I haven't made one for her yet. The dress pattern is also really easy to make and customize, so I might have to make some other dresses for them from the same pattern.