New book, new dress with no space to sew

Marie' sent me this new sewing book from Japan the week I was moving.  All I could do was look through it once then pack it in a box.  But with a little girl's birthday approaching I had to pull it out and find a way to sew even if I had no space to sew.

My plans are to set up the sewing station in our basement.  But right now the basement looks and feels more like a dungeon so I'll have to wait until we can paint and get new flooring before setting up.  I don't mind sewing in the basement because I'm a very messy sewer and down there I can leave it out undisturbed.  For this week though I've set up right in the heart of the home in our living room, it was messy and I think that motivated Paul to start working on the basement.  

It was tricky cutting and tracing on the floor with children running and crawling on top of everything.  For that reason I made a few errors along the way.  George did something funny, I had my little bowl of pins on the floor and he was sitting quietly for quite some time.  Maryanna discovered he was taking the sewing pins and poking them into his diaper like a pin cushion.  It gave me the shivers when I saw it but he was fine and quite amused.  I should have learned to keep the pins up high after last year when Henry had several sessions of acupuncture and would stick my sewing pins in his arm and head every time they were left out.  That really gave me the shivers.  Anyways, I really need my own sewing space and hoping it will happen before the end of the month.  

Here is the dress I got done for Maryanna's birthday.  It is a two piece dress but can be worn with or without the top skirt.  Maryanna picked the fabric out from my stash, it is a lovely yellow calico cotton that my sister in law Gemina sent me from B&J's in New York last year.  It was my favorite design from the new book and I'm happy that both Maryanna and I love it.  She has worn it two days in a row now.

This dress is hanging in the girls bedroom and I'm just itching to paint it.  Or maybe I'm just itching from all the mosquito bites, either way the mosquitoes are still bad and I'm spending more time indoors than I like so I may just get started on the painting project.  Here is the dress on, and I'll post more with her birthday report.