Love & Kisses for Project Run & Play Week 4 of Season 6

As always, just click on the photos to enlarge them.

 I am having such fun with the sew-along challenges for Project Run and Play!  It is really motivating me to get some sewing accomplished.  This week's challenge is "Love is in the Air" for Valentines Day.  I decided to make a little dress that can be worn over a white knit shirt for beautiful little Chloe, the daughter of another kindergarten teacher at my school.  All materials, including the hand embroidered vintage linen napkin were in my stash.  I guess this counts as 'stash busting', too!

I used this McCalls pattern but made quite a few changes.  The pattern calls for shirring with elastic thread on the back bodice and doesn't have you line the bodices at all.  That doesn't work for me so I completely lined both the front and the back bodice pieces and made channels for elastic casings in the back piece.  I added at least 4 inches to the strap length and still feel they could be longer.  I also made the little loops in the back longer.  I added 5 inches to the sashes and lined them as well.  Next time I would make them even longer.  They seem very short to me.  Chloe is not quite 2 1/2 years old and I made a size 3 according to her measurements.  I feel that the pattern runs small and would size up next time.  This is a surprise because my experience with the Big Three pattern companies is that they usually run large.

As you can see, I basted a vintage napkin to the skirt front and put the entire front through my pleater making such nice little pleats for gathering it to the bodice.  I smocked the napkin section with red DMC floss in a simple heart design.  I appliqued two heart shapes in contrasting fabric and machine satin stitched around them in rayon thread.  The little pewter heart charm was in the jewelry findings box and was the perfect finishing touch.

You will see in the next picture that I didn't knot the straps after pulling them through the back loops the way the pattern shows the closure.  I didn't like how that looked so I tied them together.  The bow is big and pretty but I really would prefer the sashes to be longer.  We've been having some beautiful warm weather here lately.  If this weekend had been Valentines Day, Chloe could have worn this without a shirt!

This weekend was my son's 18th birthday.  I can't believe how fast these eighteen years have flown by!  Logan is a wonderful young man, an honor roll senior who makes us very proud of the good choices he makes every day.  That is my sweet husband in the picture with him.

I can't get over how much he looks like my Uncle Bill, my dad's younger brother.  He has his dad's upper lip and my eyes, though.  He has Uncle Bill's sense of humor and my dad's musical ear.  Logan plays the piano beautifully.

The last picture is of my daughter during the last week of December.  Victoria-Rose is 19 and is a freshman in college studying music performance and education.  She is a pianist and an opera singer.  I have two amazing children.  I am truly blessed.

Don't forget to stop by Project Run and Play to see all the other Valentine inspired outfits.  Next week is a challenge that I have been anxious to complete:  taking a man's shirt and making it into something for a child.  I am excited by this challenge and have been working on it off and on since the first week.  I have turned it into something for my "Grandmother's Hope Chest"!