Designing a Prom dress

How do you design a Prom dress that is exactly what you picture in your head? This can be a hard feat to accomplish. Its even harder when you are trying to figure out what is someone elses head. 

This is the obstacle I ran into this last month with our oldest daughter. She had drawn out some thumb nail sketches for me after verbally describing them to me, I had not clue what she wanted. I have seen this happen many times in the past when one person is a seamstress and the other person doesn't know sewing terms or fabrics.

So how did we resolve our communication difficulty. I drew up a Croquis with my daughters measurements in mind. If you are asking what is a Croquis? It is a quick sketch of a fashion figure. There are many good tutorials out there on how to create them. Taking the time to draw them is absolutely worth your time and effort.

After drawing a croquis of our oldest daughter, I took a blank piece of paper and laid it on top of her croquis. I sketched out different versions of what I thought she was saying she wanted. Each design was on a different sheet of paper. I also added a few extra drawings in different cuts that I thought she might also like but since she doesn't know enough about sewing yet might not think to ask for in her design.

This method made it so much easier to communicate about what she was picturing because she could say things like, I like these lapels, those buttons and could see where the skirt would hit her legs without having to cut or sew anything. This is fantastic because as usual I am on a time crunch and don't have enough of the final fabric to do several versions of it. 

Here are some of the sketches so you can see what I mean.

I hope this helps you save a lot of time.

Soap dispenser sludge

Why is there always water all over the bathroom counter?! It seems to pool around the soap dispenser into a disgusting sludge. How does something that's supposed to clean things end up so gross? 

This pool of soap sludge around our soap dispenser happens because of how we wash our hands as a family. It's a sticky mess that can be harder to clean if I don't get to it right away and I don't want to discourage my kids from washing their hands. If we washed them like medical professionals scrub their hands this wouldn't happen. 

As a family we have talked about shaking out our hands in the sink before drying. We have talked about wiping down the counter after drying our hands. We have tried leaving a towel right next to the the soap dispenser as a reminder to clean up after washing. We have tried placing a wash cloth under the soap dispenser to catch all of the spilled water but the cloth gets saturated very quickly and doesn't catch all of the water what was spilled from hand washing. We have tried placing a hand towel under the soap dispenser and this worked a little better because it captured all of the water but it still ended up a big sopping mess. 

One day I was washing some dishes and placing them on the drying mat when it occurred to me that those mats are really good at absorbing the water without getting really gross quickly. This thought made me pause and ask myself "Why couldn't those serve the same purpose in the bathroom?"

 I bought some extra mats from the dollar tree and placed the whole mat under the soap dispenser and I watched to see what would happen. Sure enough it absorbed all the water and didn't get sticky like the washcloths or towels did. When I changed out the drying mats I could pick up the mat and it wouldn't drip water all over the place. I could easily clean where the mat was when I changed them out.

After living with this for a few months my husband asked if I could cut the mats down so that they were not hanging into the sink or over the edge of the counter. I looked at the edges of the mats and thought I could do the same stitch on my sewing machine. I cut them to fit the shape of the area they were supposed to absorb water and zig zag stitched up the edges. 

 

We are still working as a family on not dripping all over the bathroom counter but at least we know that everyone is  washing their hands and I am always happy about that.

How to mend sweater holes

Matching thread  

Before

Step 1

Seam rip off the collar. I was gentle and took my time taking off the collar. I didn't want to cause any additional damage to the sweater.

Step 2

Gently pull the thread that the collar was woven from apart. Side note: This was an interesting experience because I have told my children so many times never to pull loose threads because it will make holes or cause damage to fabric. Always cut it carefully. Now I was pulling on threads intentionally to pull the collar apart.

Step 3

Take a needle and some of the thread that was pulled apart and thread your needle. 

Step 4

Place your hand inside of the item you need to mend in the area where the hole is located. Notice outside your hole you will see threads that look like they are on top and thread below those same threads or staggered beneath the threads on top. You will be weaving over and under these threads to create a new patch of fabric where the hole is. For me I measure how big the hole is and start about that same distance away from the hole weaving over and then under, over and then under repeating that pattern until I get to the edge of the hole. Now I will leave a straight line of thread across the hole. On the other side of the hole I will start weaving over then under, over then under until I have gone the same distance away from the hole as I did on the other side.

Turn around and go back the way you came on a parallel line next to the one you just created. Make sure to go under then over. You want to do the opposite of whatever the line you just did for your weaving. For Example: if you just did over then under then do under then over on the way back. Repeat this until you filled in the hole horizontally. At the end you should have a bunch of parallel threads across your hole and along both edges of the hole. It should be a rectangle  that is larger than your  hole.

Step 5

Now going perpendicular to the weaving you just put in your sweater you want to weave over and then under and alternating on the next line under then over in parallel lines again. Except this time your will get to weave over and under your threads that you ran across your hole. Keep repeating this pattern back and forth again until you have closed up the hole. You should now have perpendicular rectangle larger than the original hole you had.

Here is what mine looked like closed.

After

Can you tell that these have been mended, yes if you are up really close. But at the distance that most people stand at before the pandemic it wouldn't matter.

What if you don't have perfectly matching thread you can use from the same clothing item? I had a jacket that had a hole at the neck that had come apart. Side note: I think the tag is what made it wear out there.

Here is an alternative solution when you don't have identical thread to use.

Contrasting thread/yarn

Before

Repeat steps 1-5 as shown above.

Step 6

Outline a shape that you like with a contrasting color, I chose a star. I also decided to use a yarn that was very close to the mint green the jacket was trimmed with along the edge. Then using the same weaving technique I filled in the shape till I liked how it looked. Side note: Not all mending has to disappear. It can add interest to show that clothing has been mending depending on how you do it. It could just be a mended item or you can make it look more original by embracing the chance that mending brings. It can be fun.

After

Back Story:

Shopping at Thrift stores can be really fun. There is so much variety in the styles of clothes and you can often get nicer quality clothing for far less than buying it new. When I take my teenage daughters we wander around looking at all the clothes, hats, scarves etc. When we have found everything we think we might like we start to narrow things down. We look at how long the clothes might last, are there any holes in them, or are too big or have a stain on them. With thrift store shopping these kinds of problems just arise and we expect them when we look at clothes.

 For our family these kinds of things are not necessarily deal breakers because I can mend and sew. If the clothes have a hole my next question is, Can it be mended closed or patched with out it ripping back open. If the answer is yes, then the item is still under consideration. If the item is too big can I take it in? Some fabrics do not handle seam ripping well and would not handle well what it would take to make the item fit. With other fabrics it's no problem to take things in a little bit or a lot. If its a stain, is this a stain that will come out? If the clothes are a little too bit and I take the item in so that the stain is gone? It is a whole process and is very tiring.

So when I was shopping for "new" clothes with our teenage daughters we found a cashmere sweater one of our daughters loved the color and texture of but there was a collar she didn't like and there were some holes in the front and back. She asked me "Could you take the collar off?" I looked at it and said "Sure." I didn't even mention the holes I noticed because I knew I could use the collar thread to mend the holes in it. I was able to take the collar off and mend the holes in a about an hour. Well worth the 5 dollars we paid for the cashmere sweater she wears at least once a week.