Biography Day

So, today was biography day at the school.   The kids did their reading and report at school, thanks be to God.  At home, they got to make a diorama, a costume, a poster, or a prop to go along with it.  When my daughter came home excited about the project, I got excited with her.  It has been a long, long time since there was excitement over school work, but that is another story.  The only time the excitement happens is when a big, time sucking, mess making projects are involved. The bigger and more time sucking, the more exciting.   So, we took all of our enthusiasm and dove in!
First, we got a pattern from our friend Tracey who does costuming for the ballet company.

Next, we cut it out.  Well, Little Miss cut it out because this is her project and she is going to do as much of it as possible.

Climbing onto the table is an absolutely necessary step in the process.

We were up until after 10 PM this night because we got carried away.  Sadly, this was the night that all the Josh Hamilton relapse news broke and the tv was accidentally on the news.  Therefore, in addition to learning to cut out a pattern, we learned about addiction.  After that heavy, heavy conversation, I knew there was only one thing to do to lighten the mood.  Pinterest!  We had a grand time pinning puppies and nail polish and other things that are girly and wonderful.
How cute is that???



The next day, we went to Tracey's and she serged all the fabric pieces so that they would not ravel.  Have I mentioned that Tracey is amazing and incredibly kind?  Well, she is.  I also rotary cut the flag strips.  I don't let Little Miss use as rotary cutter yet, for fear that she will sever a finger.  And, I have cut myself with one before and it hurts.  I really don't want to deal with all that drama.

Once the strips were cut, I put the 1/4 inch foot on the Hello Kitty machine and she pieced the flag together--all by herself!!   Once that was done, she cut out stars and ironed them onto the flag.  How did the stars get so perfect?  Well, I got out my protractor and centered and measured and it took forever.  NOT REALLY!  I picked a few bowls out of the cabinet and found one that was the right size.  She placed the stars around and ironed the tips on.  Then she moved the bowl and ironed the centers of the stars and done.

While she worked on the flag, I began piecing the bodice.  Bodice.....That word strikes fear into my heart.  I am good at sleeves and good at skirts, but bodices are made up of funny looking pieces and they have to fit just so!  Little Miss pressed the seams for me.

With that done, she wanted to sew more, so she pieced together the skirt.  She learned how big a skirt is before it is gathered.

 She paraded around pretending to be a weight loss photo!

 We gathered the skirt and added it to the bodice.  Then Tracey came and gave me a tutorial on putting in an invisible zipper.  She is good and I am certain that it will still take me 4-6 tries to get it in correctly.  But we have a finished product!   She made her hair feather herself.  

Not so fast, my friends, not so fast.  Somewhere along the way, I got the BRILLIANT idea of making a dress to match for her American Girl doll.  It would be an easy little project.  A couple hours tops.  And it would be adorable.  Well, not a single one of those statements held true.  It was a pain in the rear.  A great big huge pain in the rear.  It took about 6 hours.  Even though patterns are written in English, I would swear that they are about as helpful as the Jell-o man on the IKEA instructions.  And it was not adorable, it was absolutely amazing!   

The lesson learned from this project was (please feel free to quote me and share this with your husbands!) is that at $25-35 an outfit, American Girl Doll clothes are not overpriced.  They come with shoes.  If I would have paid myself minimum wage to do this project, it would have been $45 dollars--plus supplies and no tights or shoes came with it!  That being said, I would go so far as to say at $25-35 an outfit, those clothes are a bargain!  Now you might ask, 6 hours, $45 dollars, was it worth it.    You bet your buns it was!