A Sewing Project: Capes for Flower Girls

My Little Princess was thrilled to be a flower girl not once, but twice in 2013.  Her auntie, my sister-in-law, just had a gorgeous Winter Wonderland Christmastime wedding.  All of the ladies, including the flower girls, had beautiful capes in keeping with the theme and season.

The flower girl's capes were handmade by the bride and myself.  The bride cut out all of the pieces.  (Which was awesome, because I find the cutting part to be so tedious plus being just days away from my third trimester I had zero desire to lay everything out nicely on the floor.)  Once she cut the pieces I was able to sew the pieces together fairly quickly.

Sewing Notes:

• Unfinished edges of fake fur shed.  Like crazy.  Be warned.
• We did use a pattern, it was Butterick 5809 view B -- the detachable cape.
• We made a total of five capes, four size 4 and one size 2. Catherine's cape is a size 4 and seems pretty true to size.  (At least as much as a cape needs to be.)  
• We ditched the collar that was called for by the pattern and simply added ribbon for a bow.
• I only top-stitched around the collar.  

Here's a picture of the back of the cape mid-dance.  Catherine is a dancing queen when it comes to weddings -- she simply doesn't stop!  (Her hair is tucked under the cape in this picture.)

I am very happy with the end results.  All of the girls looked absolutely adorable.  AND we didn't break the bank!

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Rachel: The Philosopher's Wife

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THE Dress

One of my (many) guilty pleasures is TLC's "Say Yes to the Dress".  We don't have cable, but I recently stumbled across it on Netflix.  (I should admit that my first introduction was when we had free cable--and yes we told the company that we got it, we didn't want it--I mean we didn't want to pay for it, and they should take it away.  They said it would take a few days, which in reality was almost two years.  Sigh, I miss HGTV, the Food Network, and USA.)

The amount of money that some brides are willing to drop for a dress sometimes truly astounds me.  Some of these women spend more on their dresses than our little house in South Bend cost!  (Granted, it was a very small house in a very sad and dejected market . . . but still!)  Almost all of the dresses on the show cost more than our current Ford Taurus; and I think I've only seen one dress cost less than my first car, the Hyundai Elantra.

I can't find a full length picture that is already on the computer to
show you the awesomeness of my dress, so here's a sampling.

Don't get me wrong, I totally understand wanting the perfect dress for your wedding day.  It is a once in a lifetime experience.  The feeling of walking down the aisle, feeling your best, with the man of your dreams waiting at the foot of the altar is almost impossible to describe.  It is an amazingly special day and your attire should reflect the awesomeness that is happening.  But, the dresses the cost as much as a house or car don't really seem that much better than an . . . gasp . . . off the rack dress.

Personally, I loved my dress!  I was able to find almost exactly what I wanted at David's Bridal and a very talented friend of mine was able to add gorgeous straps--with beading to match the rest of the dress!  (She really did a fantastic job!)  I could gush about it for a long time . . .

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I have a quick rant before I finish.  It bothers me when people refer to the wedding as "the best day of your life".  It certainly is ONE of them, but the implication that it is all downhill from there is just wrong and downright depressing!