Problems, Problems, Problems!

Oh, dear! What a weekend it has been! Busy and dramatic with lots going on in the family and among friends, it's a wonder I even found time to start the dress I promised you, but somehow I did, and the rush I was in to get it done before visitors came over probably has more to do with the disaster I ran into than I'd care to admit!

First off, all was going swell. I knew what I was doing (or so I thought!), had cut my fabric to the size and pinned it together quickly to see whether it looked right, and was happy with the result. I sat down at my overlocker and began running up the seams. All was good and I got the sleeves attached quickly and with ease. I overlocked the bottom of the dress and was about to run around the neck when the first problem arised - I had attached the sleeves right to the edge of the material and there was no room for the casing for the elasticised neck! Ever tried to unpick overlapping overlocking before? What a mess! It took ages and put a bit of a hole near the edge of the neck due to the cotton getting all clumped up and me impatiently pulling at threads, but eventually it came undone and I was able to continue. I quickly reattached the sleeves, leaving a gap at the top for the elastic, and moved on to the next step - overlocking around the neck. This really should have been simple, and it would have been, had I not ran out of cotton on one spool without realising, trimming the edge of my material without actual stitching for the entire way around the neck! At this point, I was ready to call it quits, toss the fabric aside and never sew again (I was having quite an emotional day and sewing was suppose to offer respite, not further complicate my life!), but I didn't - I took another look at the dress and tried to figure out what's next. This is about the time where I realised I had failed to leave the sleeves long enough to hem, and had, after all that trouble, still not left enough gap between sleeve and neck of dress for the casing for the elastic! After all the unpicking, trimming and re-sewing I had already done, I was not in the mood for any more and rather than unpick and reattach the sleeves, I chopped them off and made new ones! Now my only problem is that I have realised the way I was going to attach the sleeves - a cheater's way, of course - is not going to work and I'm going to have to either google a way to do it, or exasperate myself trying to figure out my own way. Not bad for a "quick and easy" dress, huh?

Anyway, I hope you all had a better weekend than I did, even if just slightly, and here are some pictures of a pillow I ran up last week to test out the new overlocker and give myself something to hug while I read sad books:

It looks quite good in the old, broken down wheelbarrow, doesn't it?

The crocheted detail on the pillow is an old doily I found in an op-shop which I cut up for various craft projects. Amazingly, this squarish piece of it was all I had left, and fit the pillow perfectly! I hand stitched it on around the edges, leaving the middle a little loose so that when I stuffed the pillow, the stitching wouldn't pucker or pop and the stuffing wouldn't bulge.

I'm not very good at closing things that I've stuffed - anyone got any tips or a good stitch to use?