Independence Day and exhaustion...

...  These two almost always seem to go hand-in-hand for me, and this year was no different.  I had planned to make a simple dress from a dollar store t-shirt for my daughter a few days ago, to wear to a dear family friend's party Thursday, but then I kept getting distracted from it until about 10pm the night before Independence Day, YIKES!  I was initially inspired by the cute t-shirt dress with the braided collar Ashley made for her younger daughter over at Make It & Love It, but I couldn't find a single one of her cami's do use as a pattern!  So instead I grabbed one of her tank tops, and laid it out on the shirt, totally forgetting to remove the pocket first, but thankfully when the dress was cut, the pocket stayed on and I was able to pick it off after cutting the dress out.  YAY!  Since the only T that I could find that was the appropriate size was grey, I just HAD to dress it up with some red, white, and blue now didn't I?  And THAT is where the trouble started!  lol  The dress was so simple to make, I'm sure I'll be making at least a dozen more, but WOW, I didn't realize how much more difficult making things like clothing can be when you no longer own an iron!  Yes, you read that correctly, we no longer have an iron.  At some point over the last year that my husband and I have been apart, he managed to lose/ throw away my expensive, cordless, Oreck iron!  Needless to say, I am DECIDEDLY less than pleased!  However, the dress is cute and I am quite satisfied with the results.

So, I mentioned that it's a dress made out of a size 3X t-shirt from the dollar store, right?  Cuz it absolutely is.  And in order to give it some pizazz for this wonderful holiday, I used three sheets of craft felt, one each red, white, and blue, and cut four stars from each one.  These were SOOO difficult to get on!  I had pins in more spots on this thing than I think I have used ever, except when I had to pin-pleat a shirt I was making for my son, and I couldn't get my sewing machine to gather the piece I needed gathered.  Sewing on those stars...  Yeah, I don't think I will EVER do something like this again, EVER.  (Of course, having said that, now you know my brain is secretly plotting for me to do exactly that another 50 times before the end of the year, right?  And I'll only find out about it after I've made the first 30.  lol)  But enough jibber-jabber! 

Here is the dress before any pinning/ sewing took place, it only has the stars laid out where I wanted them to be:

That was about the point when I realized I was going to KILL myself trying to sew down each of those stars individually, with nothing holding them to the dress front to make it NOT move, and no stabilizer or interfacing to help give the fabric some heft and make it not move about as well!  Ah well, such is life, right?

Well, about three hours later, I had this.  Well, most of this.  About 3am I got so frustrated with the thread I was using for the hems and the neck- and arm-hole openings, because it kept snapping randomly, that I just HAD to go to Walmart and get new thread!  It was maddeningly frustrating!  But this was done by 4am, all but sewing down the seams to the back of the dress, and she keeps insisting she loves it.  I would honestly be surprised if I discover her not wearing it when I go to bed later!  lol

So my guess is that the dress was a hit.  She loved it, and surprisingly we received several compliments on it today, too!  I like it when things that I make get complimented, especially when I'm not too sure how the finished product would look, as I definitely was with this one.  So I'm very glad it worked out.  And that's it for now.  Happy Independence Day for those still celebrating, happy sleeping and Friday, for those already on to the next day of the week.  :)