May 17

Lucy shed her pickled beets cardigan as soon as we got out of church, but I'm still going to count it.

Sebastian started out the day in pants, but we swapped them out for these more practical shorts when the day turned hot.

 And now for the dress that's taken nearly a year to complete.

It's the tank dress from Alabama Studio Style, in black organic jersey, with 3/4 sleeves from a basic shirt pattern tacked on.  The design is Angie's Fall Placement Stencil, which I cut out of quilter's template with a woodburning pen.  I also used my trusty airbrush gun to paint it in black on the front and back middle panels.  That proved to be ridiculously difficult to see, so for a while I only did the backstitch which outlined the design at noon outdoors wearing sunglasses that somehow increased the contrast. After working that way for an embarrassingly long time, I had the brilliant idea to outline the design in a special hot pink erasable crayon to make it more visible. After that, the project flew by.

My main stroke of genius on this project was to only make a double layer of jersey on the stenciled center panels. The extra layer ends at my waist, so I was able to do the reverse appliqué and cut away the top layer in spots without lining the entire dress.  For now, this is a great loophole to avoid using 6 yards on one dress. This little hack meant I only needed 3.  I did wear my fuscia slip beneath, which definitely made it look more substantial and less clingy.  In future I'll think long and hard about making a fully lined version.

Lucy abandoned her soft serve when she spotted this dandelion.

I asked what she wished for, and she told me, "MOAR ICE CREAM!"  How convenient.

I would have wished for a closet full of these dresses.