Finished

16 yo granddaughter Sarah has come over the last two days to learn how to sew a Civil War (or I should say "War between the States) re-enactment dress. Last year her sister Kitty was able to be an "ice angel" at the Brooksville Massacre re-enactment, and they have several other homeschooling friends who are also involved, so Sarah was ready to try. With the re-enactment coming up Saturday, we knew we better kick it in high gear.

We shopped for appropriately homespun fabric and trims (although we did concede to a zipper) and cut the dress out yesterday. I knew that table tennis/pool table was taking up huge space for a reason! As we went along, I felt I should tell her about the "real" way to do certain steps, learned many years ago in Home Ec class. I did not want to fail to expose her to the "right" way, but then off we went on Grandmama's shortcuts! I found out she is a common sense sewer like me, so we were a good fit.

Today, I had to leave with dh for a few hours just as she came to the zipper. I gave her basic guidelines, and when I got home, she had done a beautiful job of setting in the zipper! As we neared the end of the whole process, she said she had learned two things it took me a while to learn years ago: 1) sometimes pinning things up is really shorter than trying to hold things in place; and 2) the iron is your friend -- keep it handy!

So dh took her home a few minutes ago with an adorable Prairie Muffin dress, simple, practical, yet beautiful, and her "ice angel" apron, which we made without a pattern (a perfect exercise to demonstrate the practicality of math). I think I feel as satisfied with a job well done today as she does -- after all, investing my life into a darling granddaughter's is about as satisfying as it gets. Thank you, Beth and Eddie for allowing us the time, and especially, thank you, Lord.