Square Dancing Outfit

Hi Folks - thanks for all your kind words on my earthquake post, I think I have now recovered from in personally, by saying that I mean every time I step into an elevator or bus I have stopped asking myself "what would happen to me if there was an earthquake right now". I'm not sure the city has recovered quite so well, around 10% of the cities buildings were impacted by the earthquake and there's lots of repair and demolition work happening, but life is even harder for folks in Kaikoura so I am pretty grateful.

Onto something a bit more cheery now, I made a square dancing outfit! WHAT?? For our work function this year the theme was "Wild West" (which I may have chosen along with a work college) anyway a work function calls for a costume and as the theme was Wild West it meant I could finally use this square dancing pattern I bought for a couple of dollars when Arthur Toye fabrics was closing down.

My original plan was to make a square dancing blouse and a skirt from the Colette Ginger pattern. A few months back when I was at fabric a brac I found some great fabric for the top - this fun cowboy boot fabric, I loved it from the minute I saw it and as I had a wild west party on the horizon I knew I had to have it!

The fabric is a quilting cotton and pretty much perfect for what I wanted to maker - each boot has the name of a different state in the US. As always, I had my trusty assistant nearby to help me with my project.

She sat down on the fabric pretty much as soon as I took it off the shelf - as soon as I pull out fabric or a pattern she must sit on it immediately.

The pattern was a pretty easy sew, with four main pieces and elastic in the neckline and sleeves. I didn't have a whole lot of fabric so had to piece the sleeves together bit the fabric is so busy its hardly noticeable.

As I was sewing up the blouse I decided that if I was going to go dressed up I may as well take it all the way, so put away my Colette pattern and made the skirt pattern as well as the blouse from the kwik sew pattern. I really love gingham, but have a tendency to hoard it and not really wear it so decided to use some of it for this project. The red gingham I bought from Arthur Toye fabrics and the yellow was from the very first fabric a brac I attended!

Mia again was happy to "help" me with this part of the project, she sat on the red gingham as I tried to cut out the panels.

 The skirt is a pretty easy make (it has an elastic waist casing so no fitting issues) but its time consuming as there are so many panels to sew together and the frill on the bottom is actually huge - so much hemming.

Here's a photo of all the patterns sewn together, before I added the bottom frill and elastic at the waist - SO MUCH FABRIC!

In the spirit of "everything last minute always" I finished up the skirt the night before the work Christmas party, the finishing isn't the best on the skirt - but it's a costume so it doesn't matter too much.

On the day of our work party, I did win best dressed! Although the prize was a pair of possum fur nipple warmers - but I still won!

I didn't really take any photos on the night of the event, but Rich took a few photos of me wearing my square dancing outfit earlier today (Mia joined me for the photo shoot - of course).

I wore the skirt with this crinoline petticoat I've had for a number of years that I always think I should get rid of, but never do and it turns out that its a really handy thing to have in your wardrobe.

Also on the day of our work party we had a secret Santa and it turns out that my secret Santa understands me completely because I received this book:

I hope you are all doing well and enjoying or avoiding the lead up until Christmas - whatever you prefer!