McCalls 7969- A Ruffled Sleeve Midi Dress

I finished another McCalls 7969 over the weekend. This pattern is a very popular pattern mostly because of the sleeves. I completed two garments with the popular big, billowy sleeves but this time, I decided to make a different view from the pattern which is the ruffled sleeve midi dress. I like how it turned out.

My Christmas dress…at home

I did have a few mishaps though. First, I had issues with my serger again. I learned even more about my serger because after lots of research, re-reading the handbook, threading, re-threading, checking the spools, checking the tension, etc., I think the issue was with all the lint inside the machine. I cleaned the lint out and it worked fine. So far, so good. I’ll make sure to keep my machine clean from now on.

The other mishap is that I accidentally sewed through part of the shoulder when I was using the serger to finish the seams. I had to unpick the serger seams and unfortunately, I ended up with a hole. A significantly big hole. I ended up putting a flower in it’s spot.

I’m not really loving the flower idea, but maybe another time, I will learn how to fix the hole.

Also, this fabric was very cheap and very hard to work with. This is not so much of a mishap but more of a lesson learned. I bought this fabric from Downtown L.A. for $1.99 a yard. This is the second time I used cheap fabric and I will never do it again. It frayed a lot and the seams are already coming apart a little bit because it’s so cheap.

However, I must say that even with all these mishaps, I appreciate this dress. Especially since once I tried it on, I was happy with the end result.

Happy Sewing!

Simplicity 8926- A Checkered Gingham Dress

I finished a project this weekend. It’s a checkered gingham dress that I made for my daughter as part of her Christmas gift. I bought a black and white checkered gingham fabric from Fabric.com awhile back. I thought it was perfect for this dress. I had some practice with this pattern already since I made a top using this pattern before- Simplicity 8926. Here is my finished product:

I like how the top turned out. I chose View C but I lengthened it to make it a dress. I wanted to make View A which is a long sleeved dress, but I didn’t have enough fabric.

Since it was my second time using this pattern, I was able to breeze through and finish this project over the weekend. The only issues I had was with my serger. My lower looper thread kept breaking. I had to read through the Brother 1034D handbook, watch some YouTube videos and do some research on the internet and let’s just say I learned a lot about my serger this weekend. Which is not a bad thing.

I can’t wait to give this to my daughter. I hope she likes it.

Until then, happy sewing!

The Polar Express Train Ride in Fillmore, CA

The Polar Express is a 2004 animated film. It’s based on a children’s book by the same name by Chris Van Allsburg. It’s a story about a boy who boards a train bound for the North Pole headed to Santa Claus.

My son and I did the Polar Express Train Ride in Fillmore, CA last year. It’s a recreation of the book. We were invited to come in our pajamas just like the characters in the story. My son and I wore matching pajamas. When we first arrived at the Fillmore train station, we were given our golden round trip ticket. We walked around, stopped at the gift shop and took some pictures. After that, we looked for the Arctic Circle, which is the car we were assigned to and waited for the train to arrive.

Once it arrived, we boarded and were greeted by the conductor. We took our seats and he made his way down the aisle to “check” everyone’s ticket. He hole punched our ticket many times to make confetti and sprinkled it on us. My son and all the kids in the train loved that. There was lots of singing and dancing. They read The Polar Express book to us and did a little recreation of it.

The chefs came out to dance and served us a snickerdoodle cookie and a hot chocolate. Santa Claus came for a visit as well and gave us our first gift of Christmas which was a Christmas bell.

It was a fun holiday train ride. It got us ready and excited for Christmas. I’m really glad we did it last year since this year we aren’t able to do such an activity due to the lockdowns. However, I did book a holiday drive-thru adventure called WonderLAnd. You drive through and enjoy the lights, music and holiday decorations from the comfort and safety of your car. Just for fun, I plan on sewing up some matching Christmas face masks for the occasion. I suppose we can also wear our matching pajamas since we’re staying in our car. We’re looking forward to the festivities.