Dress Me Up - finished quilt top

I feel as though a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders now that my Dress Me Up embroideries have come together in a quilt top. It's just over twelve months since I started the first dress.

The ladies in the fabric diamonds came from a piece of Springtime in Paris by Michael Miller.

My photography leaves a lot to be desired, but I think you can get the general idea of how it looks.  It measures 55" by 64".

Fifties Dress No 12

Fifties No 12 Dress for "Dress Me Up" is  now finished, for better or worse.  She should keep warm travelling to and fro in her little cape.  Now the problem is  of how to put them together.

I'm trying to decide if I can combine some of the illustrations in this  Paris fabric with the twelve embroideries. The ladies in the fabric are just over half the height of the ones in the embroidery so I'm thinking that  at that size perhaps twelve of these ladies wouldn't dominate the embroideries.

Fifties Dress No 8 at long last

Fifites Dress No 8 of the Dress Me Up from Bobby Socks Quilts is finished at last, in its fashion  Four more to go.  I've heard marathon runners talking about hitting a wall and that's how I'm beginning to feel about these embroideries.  Each one seems to be taking me longer to complete !

Here in the southern hemishpere it's summer time and holiday time.   Most groups take this month off from their regular meetings, and with all the holiday activities as well it's easy for handwork to take a back seat for a while.

But I also finished quilting and binding the floral quilt with cross stitch panels and I am so pleased with it.  The colours  are among my favourites.  Taking a photograph of it lying flat doesn't really do it justice as it drapes beautifully. I used the bamboo batting which is so flexible.

Fifties Dresses No 4 and 5, and some of the real thing..

Dresses No 4 and 5 means I'm nearly half way through the 12 dresses for the Dress Me Up quilt.

No 4, in blue, must be going somewhere special as her beau has brought her a corsage to wear.

While No 5  is in green with some variegated hail spots.

It's been interesting to look through some old albums with black and white photos of family and friends in the 1950s  to see how fashionable they were when compared to these imaginary creations.

Fresh flower corsages were a regular feature of special occasions.

Spots of various sizes, sleeveless dresses, front button openings,

Waists alway belted - 

All of these dresses were home made.

Another special moment recently was when I opened a parcel from my fabric pen-pal to find this lovely zippered  carry-all.

Just perfect for holding the essential supplies which are common to all projects. I take my embroidery with me to so many places and invariably find I've left something behind.  This solves the problem!

Fifties Dress No 3

No 3 dress for Dress Me Up wasn't quite as time consuming as the first two.  I think it's really sweet.

But if you look carefully half way up the left hand side you can see  that a small pleat has formed in the fabric - as I started to iron it the backing shifted - an iron-on adhesive kind of gauze which re-inforces the front fabric and  helps prevent puckering.  The more I tried to get the pleat out the worse I made it, so now I need to do some thinking !.

Not being a good week, actually.  This morning I made another block for the Farmer's wife quilt and went to give it a press before trimming the edges,  Only then did I notice  that one of the fabrics was sewn in with its wrong side facing.  It's so noticeable - how could I not notice it when I was sewing. Now for some retrograde stitching - the polite way of saying unpicking.

But one person who does things right is Pam from the Friday Group who has finished her lovely log cabin quilt.  I really like this one, particularly the sprays of flowers at the centre of each log cabin.

But it's raining.  And I'd love to go out for a latte !  Why can't we have a coffee truck which trawls the streets with some approriate bells or music blaring so that I could just rush out and get my desire !

Fifties Dress No 2

These fifties dresses for the  "Dress Me Up" quilt certainly are not quick to finish, but are fun to do.  I love the curve of the collar on this one, which is the second in the series.

I've just started No 3 dress and it  seems simpler to do with its sprigged pattern.

And there's  still been time to make a few more blocks for a Farmer's wife quilt. I'm now about half through for a lap size quilt.

Some Hexie Flowers and Fifties Dress No 1 for "Dress Me Up"

I should be achieving more this cold weather but progress is slow.  Yesterday I posted off a couple of Hexie Flowers to my July and August Swap Partners in the Inchy Hexagon Flower Swap

It can be difficult as some people are quite specific as to what they want.  I mean, red centre, or cream centre, or bright, or pastel are fine, but once specific ranges are mentioned it becomes hard.  I don't know one range from another and only buy fabric because I like the colour or pattern.

Then I made some progress on the dresses for Dress Me Up from the Bobby Socks Quilt Company.

This is the first dress finished.  Slow work.  I am a great copycat.  It was seeing someone else doing this pattern which got me started.  Perhaps I should just say that I find other people's work inspirational.  And that applies to coffee mugs too.  I got all nostalgic when I saw another blogger's Pride and Prejudice mug done in the old, familiar Penguin colours and wasn't content until I had one too.

I've started on Dress No 2.  I'd had great trouble getting a nice line in the black backstitch using two threads of DMC.   So this time I wanted to use a single thread in a heavier weight.  I am using Aurifil Mako No 12 for the black and am doing split stitch instead of backstitch.  Anyone know any other of the thicker threads I could try ?

The roses were too fiddly to trace so I am just sketching them on as needed. The flowers are worked in a single strand of variegated Cottage Garden Threads.