And back to our regularly scheduled program...

Or in my case, IR-regularly scheduled program, since I cannot seem to blog on a daily basis! LOL

Back oh in the early part of Spring my friend April over at April's Sea of Dollie Sweetness sent me this picture and asked if I could recreate the outfit for her Minifee Raine.  I of course agreed provided I could find the polka dot knit material.  I figured how hard could finding a small scale black polka dot on white background me.  Famous last words!!!  It took me stopping at about 6 different fabric and clothing stores before I finally found something that worked.  As crazy as it sounds at the time the only black polka dot on white knit material I could find was at Wal-mart... in the ladies lingerie section!!!  Yep the ONLY fabric that I could find that worked was panties!  So I bought a couple pair so I would have enough material to work with.

Fast forward through the summer and the moving-not moving debacle, then almost 3 months of just being out of touch and not feeling in the mood to sew... well it was starting to itch at me.  I am a creative person by nature and being out of my studio for that long had me going a bit crazy.  BUT at the same time, my studio was a disaster, as I had 'started' packing in there in May when we thought we were moving in July.  So the mess was like a train wreck and I just avoided it because I couldn't even figure out where to start.

Two weeks ago I made a stop into Wal-mart for milk, and was walking past the baby section to get there, when what did my wandering eyes see... tiny black polka dots on white fabric!  Needless to say I veered to the right to investigate!  It was a fabulous stretch knit baby blanket!!!  WITH a cute hot pink floral on the other side.  A quick tug at the material revealed that there were 2 separate fabrics used, so for a cheap $7 I got almost a yard of the perfect material AND an adorable 2nd print as well!

That was just the motivation I needed to make some headway in my studio (mainly by shoving everything on my desk in front of my sewing machine and computer into a box...) and finally get back to work!

April and I decided that instead of a t-shirt I would create a 3/4 sleeve bodysuit, which would look sleeker under the skirt.

I'd never made this pattern before and there was a bit of a learning curve to it, but I can happily say that I didn't have to re-cut any of the pieces and I am in LOVE with the way it fits.

Lena here modeled it with a pair of her jeans. (Made by the fabulous Belle De Jour of Belle's Doll Fashions  The jeans are currently out of stock but I HIGHLY recommend contacting Belle if you are interested in a pair...or 3! )

The bodysuit was so sleek under Lena's jeans and just looks so polished! I will DEFINITELY be making more bodysuits in the future!

The next piece in the ensemble was the lace skirt.  April always gives me some creative leeway when she asks me to recreate a piece for her.  Which is good because sometimes the vision in my head of how to do something doesn't always work the way I think it should.  Case in point the layered lace skirt. 

April and I both felt that there was a waistband above the 2 layers on lace, so I sewed a black knit mini skirt and sewed the bottom layer of lace to the hem.  Then I added the 2nd layer of lace above that so that the bottom of the 2nd layer was just touching the top of the 1st layer.  The end result didn't really look like the inspiration piece though. :-(  BUT April loved it, as Raine is a bit shy and preferred the longer look!

So in the end it all worked out.  I also sewed a pair of biking short that the original outfit had, but the skirt just covered them up, so Raine will have those and a pair of matching polka dot socks to go with her outfit!

Tomorrow, I'll show you a few of the other pieces I sewed up!