Fun with wine bottle cheongsams !

Awoke to a beautiful show of snow, blanketing all our Autumn -harsh lawns in a mantle of white perfection. It was coming down hard by the time Beloved Hubby decided he desperately wanted Croissan- wiches for breakfast, so off we went. Long before noon, the snow had stopped and was beginning to melt, and by sunset, nearly all the roads were dry, save for some sneaky ice in the gutters. After that deliciously high-fat early breakfast, all of us went back to bed for a few extra hours. I had a semi-nightmare about making a huge scene because I got shafted in line at Hancock Fabrics again and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I was the first up.

I actually got off my bottom and got some stuff done. Put away the last of the Christmas decorations – had to clean out the hall closet to store it all ! – and decided to tackle the Playroom-clogging array of doll boxes. I had three MH ones lingering around, the five from Christmas (including the HUGE one the Animator’s Anna and Elsa set came in !), the three MH Inner Monsters boxes, two other doll packages I found in the closet, and a couple Amazon Prime shipping boxes, to boot. Got ‘em all busted down, with some pieces saved for later projects, and bagged up. While catching my breath, ‘cause that actually wore my lazy butt out, I made four bookmarks from the sixth-scale Frozen doll boxes. I always hate to throw away the pretty snowflake-decorated plastic, so I cut it up and rounded the sharp edges – and if the bookmark vanishes, no big deal.

After a late lunch, I was feeling restless again. So I tackled that old Dollar Tree wine bottle cheongsam I got from the Flea Market the day after Christmas. I’d bought them from DTree years ago, they fit Crissy pretty well, and the pretty frog closures easily pried off for later projects – they actually do ‘work’. I’d already cut the Flea one down the back, so I knew it’d fit the DP & M girls, and ordered more from an eBay seller. Cheaper there than Etsy. Had to finish the Flea one first, even though the better ones from eBay arrived days ago, and the holiday print on the Flea one was all upside down. And there’s a mark from a price sticker that didn’t come out in the wash.

Went very well, and quite easily, since all I had to do was cheap-serge the raw edges - that cheep stiff sateen frays like anything ! - and add Velcro ™  and a partial back seam. Looks great on Tia ! But I think I’ll take off the mandarin collars on the rest, re-seat them lower. The Flea one bunches a bit under Tia’s chin and jaw. It’ll be easy to remove the collar and redo it next time. And I have ten to work with !