Tuesdays with Sharon

Now that Sharon and I are committed to sewing together each Tuesday, I need to come up with a clever name for the endeavor. Tuesdays with Sharon will have to do for now, and truly, it is the simplest way to reference it!

She came to my house this time, since I was working on the prom dress. Sharon brought her Aviary charm packs and continued to work on her project from last week. I need to get the book she's using and report the title here, along with the exact name of the quilt. It's a book that specifically addresses using layer cakes, charm packs and jelly rolls - precuts, I suppose you'd say.

At the beginning of the day, Sharon had this:

She was chain piecing, so all these rows are attached, and are ready for horizontal rows to be stitiched. But wait!! There's a problem!!!

This star has a twisted point. A bit of unsewing was required, and she was back on track.

We took our lunch break while this was stretched out on the floor. Guess who came to play? Gracie.

I don't know what her fascination is with quilt parts on the floor, but she had done this before. She goes nuts!

She had the quilt top tossed into quite a mess before we finally got her out of there. (Throw kitty treats down the basement steps, and watch her go! We shut her in the basement.)

At the end of the day, Sharon had the center portion of her quilt top nearly fully constructed. There are about 4 rows at the top there that still need to be sewn. Next, she has decisions to make concerning borders. I also think she intends to restitch a couple of the blocks that form the stars, as she is dissatisfied with certain points (or lack of points!).

At this point my DH came home from work; he admired it (like a good quilter's husband should!), and Sharon referred to it as a "girly quilt." Yes, it is, but it is so beautiful, and so Sharon! She has a decided preference for the cottage look, and this speaks to that preference perfectly. It makes me want to work on a floral, soft, girly quilt, too!

The prom dress work for me consisted of making a second trial bodice. I did one without lining and boning, which was way too big. Into the trash with that, and I cut out a second bodice, a full size smaller. This time I went for all of it - lining and boning, included. It took quite awhile, but it came out pretty well, and when Emma tried it on, we had a  pretty decent fit. I've got a couple of places to take in just a skosh tighter and we will be good to go.

Here's practice bodice #2, constructed using some ugly, cheap '80s cotton.

Today, the real dress goes into production.