Stylearc Marilyn dress and another sewer

We are on our way home from a very nice family wedding in Washington DC. 

My son's brother-in-law got married and since we have become not just the outlaws, but friends, with my daughter-in-law's parents, we were invited.

The wedding was in the backyard of the house and really lovely. As an event it also gave us a chance to connect again with people and family we don't see often enough and that alone was worth any trip.

Here is my Marilyn dress by Stylearc in silk charmeuse in a sort of teal, and because I ran out of fabric, the sleeves are lined in navy. 

I wasn't crazy about sewing with this fabric, something that pressed better might have made nicer ties, and although I lined the body of the dress in Bemberg lining and the dress had enough structure, the hem should have been bound or something to add more weight. I did a far bit of fussing over this fabric until I finally realized that what was really bothering me was that I felt this was immoral yardage.

I had originally bought this fabric for my youngest son's former girlfriend to wear to a wedding, but when he broke up with her, I was left with the fabric. She's a very nice girl, clearly they didn't have enough in common, I get that, but she was a nice girl, and this fabric has been looking at me for a while now. So here, a couple of years later I decided to make use of it but it didn't feel entirely right to me. 

Maybe that made it hard to press. What do you think?

Anyway this ended up a two-toned project and I handled this with a navy necklace bag and shoes. Yes I know it is entirely inappropriate to go so matchy but since I had to pinch hit in the navy, this made me feel better about that:

Not the best picture again, taken in the hotel room, and it did crease when I sat down. I also cropped out my bare legs. I don't care what anyone says about never wearing stockings but I think my well travelled legs are not looking as smooth as they used to. From now on we are dressing up with stockings.

Back to the pattern. 

Really this is as easy a dress as you can whip up in a hurry for an event and easy to make. I am not sure I will ever wear it again, suspect the sleeves will date pretty quickly, but it was super comfortable for an in-house wedding.

Now onto the people.

My son from San Francisco was there of course with my nice daughter-in-law, and  also my DIL's grandmother who is nearly 97.

This lady lives on her own, always brings wonderful cooking with her when she visits, and pretty much is the life of the party.

She also sewed a lot in her life, ran a dress shop and did custom work in Philly for many years, and we always talk sewing. 

These days she doesn't use her machine much but she still does hand embroidery, particularly pillows of members of the family and their pets.

Here is an arrangement of some she made of the family on a bench at the front door:

Pretty cool eh?

Now the party is over I am anxious to get home to see Miss Daisy and the rest of the family and to start planning some Christmas sewing. There is some rumour going around I am making the grandchildren matching flannelette nightgowns and PJs for Christmas eve.

Some planning to do.