The long black dress

I bought this long black eyelet dress at goodwill. 

Why? Because i liked it (I LOVE lace and eyelet), but mostly because I wanted a quick, fun, and somewhat easy project. I put my sewing projects mostly on hold in an attempt to force myself to get my sewing room finished quickly. The sewing room was coming along rather slowly though, and I needed a break! So I decided to get this dress and refashion it.
I brought the dress home and tried it on. It was a little tight. I could get it on (barely), but there was no way to put it on my dress form. In order to make the changes I wanted to make I had to have the dress on the dress form. So, the first thing I had to do was let the dress out some.
Now this dress doesn't have a zipper, just an elastic panel in the center back.

 I decided the best way to let the dress out would be to add stretchy panels to the side back as well. So I cut out the original side back panels,

 and replaced them with new panels made from an old black stretchy t-shirt.

 The new panels aren't as pretty as the eyelet ones were but they make the dress much more comfortable!

The dress then fit on my dress form so the fun part could begin!

To go along with this dress I got some black lace to make straps out of. So the first thing to do once the dress was on the form was drape the lace over the top.

I then started pinning the lace where I wanted it and cutting off the excess. It didn't take me long to get the general look of the lace straps figured out. 

I pinned everything in place then (very carefully)  took it off the dress form to sew. I chose to hand sew the lace to the dress for two reasons. First, because it looks nicer to have nearly invisible hand stitches holding the lace on, than it does to have a line of very visible machine stitches along the top of the dress. Second, by hand sewing this I could bring it with me to work, to sew during my breaks. This way I wasn't using my time at home (when I should be working on my sewing room) to sew.

So, i got all the lace sewn on. The dress then appeared to be done. It fit me well and had pretty lace straps, the two things I wanted. There was one more thing, however, that I wanted to add, pockets! I love having pockets in my dresses! 

So, using a seam ripper I opened up the side seams of the dress where I wanted the pockets to be. I made a couple of pockets from some black fabric I had in my stash.

And then sewed them in! Now my long black dress is done!

It's very lightweight and comfortable! As you can see I changed the front straps some from the original design.

I really, really like the look of the lace straps!

The back of the dress may be the prettiest part of the dress due to the lace!

This was a very fun, easy project. Now back to fixing up my sewing room and getting ready to go to Guatemala! 

Sombrita's Long Awaited Babies!

Sombrita has kidded!!! Saturday afternoon she had twin bucks!

I didn't know when she was due so for the last month I've been watching her very closely. She got huge. Her udder got huge.

Still no babies. Finally on Saturday i could tell she was in labor. She was staying away from the other goats and crying alot!

So all day I was checking on her hourly, until finally she began to push.

First two tiny hooves emerged.

Followed by the head. As soon as the head was out, I dried it off, just in case the baby started breathing before he was entirely out.

Now Sombrita could have handled everything on her own,(She has before) but I have a really hard time sitting back and doing nothing, so I was right there checking the baby's progress and helping how ever I could.

Pretty soon the baby was out! Sombrita was a very happy mama. She got right to work cleaning her son off.

Before long though she started pushing again. Baby #2 was on his way. Too keep #1 safe and out of the way my friend held him.

This is one of my best friends. For the past 6 years she has wanted to witness one of the goats kidding, but the goats have failed to respect her schedule, so it hasn't worked out. This time however she and her mom (who took all the awesome pictures) managed to arrive just as Sombrita started pushing! The timing couldn't have been more perfect. 

The second baby came out much faster than his brother. Almost as soon as we saw the hooves, the head was out. I dried off the babies head so he could breath. I was excited to see he was going to have the same markings as Brita.

The baby was soon entirely out!

Sombrita seemed as pleased with him as she was with the first baby, and immediately cleaned him off. She is such a good mama!

I am thrilled to have these babies! Sombrita is 9, so she's getting pretty old for a goat, and last year she didn't kid. I wasn't sure I'd ever get babies out of her again. Finally last month I could tell she was actually pregnant (after several months of hoping she was but not being sure).

These babies are out of Coach, a buck we just got last summer.

 He hasn't been very kind to my fences so I'm hoping to sell him and keep one of Sombrita's sons instead. I can't wait to see how these two little boys turn out!