Staying Home

Hello Dear Ladies,

I was just having a conversation with someone about various aspects of homemaking that no one ever tells you. Getting used to working alone is one of them!  For the most part, the lady at home will not have a group outside of her family to give incentives and rewards.  She becomes like the entrepreneur who is self-employed and motivated by her love for her home and family. If it is clean laundry, a clean kitchen or a prepared meal that is needed, she sometimes has to learn all by herself.  However, as practice makes perfect, she will find it easier as time goes by.

     (Above: this is the cotton fabric  from Joann fabrics, I used for the dresses, illustrated in this post)

Another thing about working alone is the occasional bouts of loneliness when you have moved away from your home place or find yourself spending hours alone when family members have to be away.

That is one reason for finding something you enjoy doing, and doing it for the joy of it.  It might be something that rests your mind or helps you feel creative.  Sewing has always been that little something I looked forward to doing when I was going to have a stretch of time alone. Lately I have added another potential pastime of illustrating the finished designs.

Today I took some time to create a sketch of two recent pieces of clothing I sewed. The original pictures are never to my liking so I re-pose the models, give them a new hair-style, and draw a better background (without the trash can or garden hose).

I thought some of you might like to see the painting in progress, so here is the primary outline, based on the photograph I took:

Now here it is with a bit of sloppy background and the faces colored in.

Here is are the completed figures, wearing my latest fashions.  I am so glad they willingly wore them and posed, but because it is so dry here, the original photo was too disappointing to display.  You will have to imagine this is what the garments looked like.

The nice thing about painting is that I can make everything bright and light, have green grass and flowers in the background, and make the models pose properly :-)

I use a child's set of water colors, with 36 choices of color, a Crayola brand brush set from Walmart and 24lb weight paper, (something we already had here that we got for letter-writing) also from Walmart.  Eventually I might get high quality supplies but for now I am happy with this.

I hope you enjoyed this little drawing, and do not get too concerned about the backgrounds being painted.  I am more interested in the dresses right now.  Over the years I have painting many a landscape and am now enjoying depicting the clothes I have been making.

Please be sure and leave comments today. I always feel so blessed that you come by here and I hope you are blessed by it, too.

Here is a closeup of the dresses.

The ladies dress is a 1996 Mcalls pattern that works well, and I never make the button closures on the skirt; just a seam.  It is a roomy enough garment that it fits well without the skirt buttons.  Also I used clear, see-through buttons from Walmart on the dress.  

The girls dress is a 2007 McCalls, with a rolled over or pressed facing -- that is where you press with your iron a fourth inch and then repeat, and stitch.  It is easy to slip over the head, even with added sleeves that I got from another pattern. 

Below, the clear buttons which also come in other colors. They have a silver glitter inside.  I used them on the misses dress because the fabric has a metallic thread outlining some of the flowers, and I thought they would go together.