a collaboration complete...

Remember that dream I had about using some of Caleb's flowers on fabric for a dress for Molly? Well, as is my ever impatient way, I had Caleb draw some new flowers and I scanned and vectorized them. After that I set the flowers up in a 8.5" by 42" repeating border pattern in my drawing program. I asked him what color he thought we should print on and he suggested ORANGE (to match her orange sandals). I had no orange fabric to speak of in my stash so I bought a yard of an inexpensive tonal print at Walmart.

I washed and dried the fabric then treated it with Bubble Jet Set and set it aside to dry. Once the fabric was dry I ironed it onto freezer paper and cut it down to size. Then I pulled out clumps of my hair and gnashed my teeth because my little printer was throwing fits about being asked to print a banner on "specialty" paper. I decided a good long time-out was in order for both of us. That was the weekend before last. Finally last Friday I decided to have another go of printing the fabric and it worked! On the first try no less. Once the fabric was printed I heat set it with my iron, then soaked it in the Bubble Jet rinse and allowed it to dry.

While the printed fabric dried, I got to work on the shirred portion of the dress. I inadvertently bought elastic cord instead of elastic thread and had to work around the issue. To make a long story short I got the job done and I hope the zigzag stitching doesn't come undone any time soon. By the time the fabric was dry I realized I should've sewn the top to the skirt and THEN added the shirring. Cut to me cussing profusly while ripping out elastic cord and watching No Country for Old Men. Eventually I finished the dress and then it sat on my desk for a couple days before I thought to try it on Molly to set the straps and whatnot.



I made that little bow for her today. She chose her shoes and ran all over the patio mugging for the camera and her brother. All in all it is a really cute little dress. Two things I learned in the process of making this dress: shirring is a pain in my ass and should only be done on a tissue weight fabric from now on...oh, and I should probably use the correct elastic too.

And after all that rigmarole, wouldn't you know, (much to my surprise I might add) I received a Spoonflower Beta invite yesterday morning. Admittedly I'm still feeling a bit of sticker shock from their pricing structure on top of shipping prices. Originally I was feeling a lot of sticker shock...like holy f-ing shit! is this Kona cotton going to sew itself? sort of sticker shock. Don't get me wrong, I think this service is a phenomenal thing, but my personal fabric budget doesn't typically allow for $18 a yard fabric even if it IS my own design. For the time being I will play around with the site and continue to play around with my patterns and I will order at least a yard or two of something all the while hoping the PTB are cooking up some coupons or free shipping or some sort of price break from time to time.