Prom Night Out!

I was where it's at at Promaballoona last night!



And so were Nhi, Sandra Mc, Amity and Jill, all in beautifully made dresses! You can also see the back of Angela of Bonne Chance in this pic.



And another KC!



The Prom was lovely. Oona is such a sweetheart, the SewLA Shop is a great space, and seamsters are the best people! Lots of pix here and here,here and on SewLA's Facebook page.

I didn't really get moving on my dress for Oona Balloona's Prom until afternoon. I couldn't decide what to make, and I can't see the Olympics from my sewing room, you know how it goes. I still should have had plenty of time. I've made the dress, Butterick 5489, before.



What could possibly go wrong? OK, the striped fabric, a $2.50/pound knit from Michael Levine Loft, was a little slippery. Like, no matter where I put it, as soon as I let go it slithered to the floor. And OK, I wanted to make it a foot longer this time. So I accurately measured out an extension to lengthen the dress and carefully applied it to the front and half the back. Oops.

But things got really educational when I set to making the buttonholes at each side of the front waist to thread the ties through. I've always considered my machine's ability to make buttonholes to be a kind of magic, so when I blithely ran this creation under the buttonhole foot and it came out innocent of any stitching, I did not know what to do. I tried a few "magic" words. I brushed my teeth. I changed my needle. Nothing. At last, desperate, I read the directions and learned about gimp. Gimp? Gimp! And that my machine has special settings just for buttonholes in stretch knit. Who knew?

Now seriously pressed for time I raced ahead with the dress. I was determined to use my FabricMart mystery bundle giraffe print somehow so I made the ties and neck and arm binding with it. It's a look, OK? But I still had to deal with the hemline, which I had to hack off at knee length to match the unfortunately brief half of the back. It was nearly 9 p.m. and Heidi, Nina and Michael were getting impatient. So I made it work by doing a "Renfrew" at the hem with a wide doubled band of giraffe. Perfection. Or, at least, no worse than my original prom dress. I left the gimp threads hanging on the dress so I could brag about them.