Musings and another little gown

When I started this blog, I promised myself that I would post every single day. Hopefully this would mean that every day I would work on clearing my backlog of UFOs. But let's face it, some days the muse just isn't with me as far as the specific project I'm trying to complete is concerned.

Today was one of those days.

There are a couple things that I had noted for mentioning here.

Gluing: My favourite gluing tool these days is a wooden coffee stirrer. I buy them in packages at Dollarama and there are always some that are not perfect so this is a handy use for those. As the glue dries, I just cut off that end of the stirrer.

Reminder to self: Do NOT clean out stash again! I wanted a cleaning pail to put under the sink and don’t have any left except a rusty one for the cabin. This is about the fifth time this has happened…very frustrating!

Decided to make another gown but didn't use Kleenex this time. When we were in Kelowna last spring, I found some lovely handmade paper meant for scrapbooking at one of the dollar stores. Originally thought I might use it for wallpaper but haven't yet so thought I'd try a piece of it the size of half a Kleenex for a gown. While it's quite thin, it's certainly stiffer than Kleenex so I crumpled it up then flattened it several times until it was softer.

You start with the outline of the gown on cardstock, a piece of paper the size of half a Kleenex and a strip of lace (optional)

Glue the lace along the bottom of the paper. This is glued on the back so only the scallops will show but that's just a personal choice with this particular lace.

Run glue down both sides of the cardstock and glue the paper on both sides about 1/4" in

 When the glue has dried along the sides, put a dab of glue at the middle of the hem of the paper and the middle of the cardstock

 Like this:

Then do the same at the halfway point on either side. Let that dry then gather the 'fabric' at the waist of the cardstock. I've glued a piece of ribbon at the waist (completely around the piece).

 A few scraps of the paper are scrunched up and glued at the top of the cardstock to give some shape to the top of the gown. Trim the extra fabric from the top leaving a seam allowance of about 1/4", shape the top of the gown and glue theseam allowance to the back of the cardstock.

 This is what the back looks like.

 I added a couple straps of narrow ribbon and put strips of self-stick rhinestones from the scrapbooking section at the dollar store on the straps and belt. Also put another stone at the neckline. Dress is finished.

 This is how the back looks.

 And the finished dress on a hanger.

The hanger is made from a piece of wire:

Once it's shaped, it's coated with white glue and wrapped with a length of unravelled Bunka.