Alastair’s Easter outfit is almost done. As soon as I get his thigh measurement, I can put the elastic in the legs and it will be ready to wear.
wild flowering plum tree
It was a gorgeous spring day in central Florida and I so enjoyed being outside to take these photos. My wild flowering plum tree is in full bloom and was full of busily buzzing bees. The azaleas are all showing off in orchid and pink, the dogwood tree is ready to burst open its buds and the orange blossoms will scent the air in a few days. Spring in Florida is a glorious time.
Aside from taking these few pictures,  planting some impatiens and cooking dinner, I have done nothing but sew. After dinner, I stitched the buttonholes, sewed on the buttons and gathered up my materials for Laurel’s dress.  It has been a sewing extravaganza for me. And, as always, I learned a few things.
Note that left collar point is not a point at all. The lace does lay flat but I neglected to straighten it after much handling. This is “chameleon” (E-1)one of my favorite laces.
The first is that I doubt I will ever again try to deal with 5/8″ seams. They are just so huge, especially when you are accustomed to 1/4″. And especially when you are working with baby garments, which are so small that joining curved pieces is very stressful.
Sewing the collar to the neckline and the sleeves to the armscye made me very sorry that I had not trimmed the pattern pieces down to 1/4″ seams.  Before I began, that seemed to be too much trouble. I thought it would be easier to just work with it. WRONG!  Has anyone else found this to be difficult or am I just an heirloom sewing whiner? I thought I would never get that little collar attached properly.
In general, though, I am very pleased with the outfit and have enough satisfaction to ease the disappointment of the birthday suit. The fancy, threaded entredeux on the collar looked just as I had hoped and imagined.
Adding the cuff, in my opinion, gave more balance to the outfit, as it echoed the fancy entredeux and the white on the collar.
chameleon lace
The tiny 1.6 twin needle pintucks with yellow thread gave a frame for the button, which I felt was necessary to hold the cuff in place for a squirmy 12 month old.
underside of collar shows that only half of lace is exposed.
I was especially happy with the chameleon lace trim. There was some doubt in my mind as to how it would work out, but it required just a minor compromise of my heirloom sewing standards.
For attachment to the collar, I simply zig zagged from the finished collar edges into the holes of the lace, which greatly resemble the holes in entredeux. However, that left the other half of the lace simply hidden beneath the collar, not tucked in or covered in any way. And it was such a quick attachment, not that speed should be a major consideration with heirloom sewing.
On the sleeves and yoke overlay, I treated it just like entredeux and rolled and whipped the raw edges of the fabric with the finished edges of the lace. It was slightly bulkier than using entredeux, but not significantly so.
The mitre was very tricky and successful on two of the four corners. It was hard to get the lace placed ideally for the best mitre. Ultimately, I stitched the mitre by hand, but one front corner still looks haphazard to me.
Now, I am moving on to Laurel’s dress. More on that later. What are you sewing for Easter?
