model behavior

this weekend Tiny Tim had a friend sleep over.

we'll call her...Bug.

meet Bug.

the girls had a "tea party", which required proper dress.

this is what Bug dug (ha!) out of the massive pile of dress up clothes.

it looked much cuter before spending a few months balled up in a drawer

before she took it off, i decided to take a few shots to share.

i made this dress at the last minute for a "princess party" i had for Tiny Tim & her friends quite a few months ago. I had a couple yards of this beautiful hot pink velvet. it's very heavy upholstery fabric. but i couldn't pass it up--it screamed princess gown to me!

i used the flower girl dress Tiny Tim wore in my brother's wedding as the base. it served as slip/underskirt all in one.

a little worse for the wear, no? ick, look at all those stains...

i made a basic bodice shape from the velvet, and stitched a faux lace up design on the front.

you can see from this photo how the velvet dress just slips right over the white flower girl dress

for the back, rather than mess with zippers and sizing, i took a clue from many wedding gowns and made it lace up, with a panel behind the laces. that way i could just tighten it up once she slipped it on, without the trauma of numerous fittings.

for the skirt, i simply took all the fabric i had left after i cut out the bodice portion, made some big box pleats, and sewed it to the bodice--starting from the middle of the front and working my way around the back and to the front again. i left it open so the 'slip' could peek through.

very romantic.

unfortunately, you get no good overall shot of the dress. because, as usual, i was too lazy to change lenses. and we all know where that leads.

i think Bug looks divine.

she is a cutie, isn't she?

thanks for modeling, Bug. because you know i have about 30 pictures of the cake i made for the princess party, but not a single photo of Tiny Tim in the dress i made her.

sigh.

(ignore the dates on these photos. my old camera liked to randomly assign dates/years to my pictures)

which is odd, because i would generally consider myself to be a much better sewer than baker. i'm usually more proud of my sewing accomplishments. yet so much of what i sew i never photograph.

maybe i was inordinately proud of my attempt at an, ahem, "castle" cake? (yeah, that's what that is. stop snickering. i can hear you)

whatever the case, there were some happy little girls that day.

(and apparently, one proud momma)