With Thanks to the Free Table

My quilt guild sets up a Free Table at the start of every meeting.  And when I actually make it to a guild meeting (hello!  I *always* forget since the meetings are the 1st Monday of the month — I never switch the wall calendar in time!), I like to peruse it.   It is full of everything from clothing patterns from the 1980s and quilt patterns from whenever to orphan blocks and to swatches of upholstery fabric and random pieces of other fabric.  I have a bag of stuff to add to the free table myself if I ever remember to bring it.

A month or so ago, I picked up this blue-background floral knit fabric.  Immediately I knew it had to be dresses for my girls.  Elena especially *loves* the comfort of knit dresses and will almost always choose them over regular cotton dresses.

Elena is *starting* to smile a bit better for the camera — not quite so cheesy.

I patterned these dresses off of some other knit dresses the girls have from Target last summer.  So I sized the dresses up and sewed them together.

In the meantime, Julia looks mischievous instead of cheesy when she smiles for the camera.

The hardest part of putting these dresses together was the pink bias I made for the straps.  I used knit fabric I had on hand which is unfortunately a little thin.  It seems to stretch a little much and the dresses start sagging by the end of the day as the straps give way.  Oops.  I don’t really know how to fix this problem except maybe use a bit more substantial knit fabric for the bias.  The dresses I patterned from also have knit straps and don’t have that same problem, so…?

The girls wanted to stand *in* the sunflowers.  I was too scared of snakes to let them go any further.

I have a fair amount left of the fabric so I’ll be returning that to the free table.  Maybe someone else will come up with a use for the rest!

I always thought sunflowers were a fall flower.  I’d just always see them in fall floral adjustments and not growing out in the wild.  Turns out they are a great summer flower, and luckily I took these pictures when I did because just 2 short days later the owner of this little field mowed them all down.

In  the meantime, I have 2 very successful MATCHING (Oh NO, we have created a monster!) dresses for the lucky price of $0 to me!  Thanks anonymous donor!