sewing, sewing, sewing

For starters, thanks for all the ideas about my military ball dress!! I'm excited to get started. Of course, this is one of the few times that Simplicity patterns aren't on sale.

It may appear that I have not sewn much lately. Although there were a few frantic first weeks of homeschooling when I thought I might as well put my machine away because I was never going to have time to sew again, I got through that and actually have managed to produce a few things :)

When it was still summery out, I picked up this plaid fabric to make this Lisette jacket out of:

 Yesterday, I saw the first few yellow leaves on my tree, so it's fitting that I finished it today!

I've made the dress on this pattern a couple of times now and love it, so it's fitting that I really love this pattern too. You can read my review on Patternreview.com here.

Beyond that, though, I have been commissioned to make two sets of crib bedding for a friend. She has fancy taste and so these are fabrics I may never have gotten to work with if not for her beautiful vision of the nursery she wants!
At first I was feeling overwhelmed (not helped by those few frantic weeks), but I decided to sew one piece a week and then use the rest of the week to work on my own personal sewing list and still finish the bedding in six weeks. Somehow that made it all much more fun :) I finished one quilt this week...

As you can imagine, these are not straightforward fabrics to work with. I had the fabrics for a couple weeks before even getting started because I had to ponder how this was going to work; the main fabric (what do you call this, picot?) almost needs gathered onto the batting. Then, to sew that onto a pretty stretchy backing (although the softest backing ever). Whew! The tricks I came up with worked amazingly!! I'd be happy to share IF anyone cares or plans on using this fabric someday :) I have some ideas for the bumper pads next!