Craft on my friends...

You know how sometimes you look at a piece of fabric and it is pretty much just telling you what it wants to be?  When I saw this fabric:

 for the first time, I knew it had to be turned into a smocked dress.  The problem is, I don't know how to smock.  This fabric came to me when I received a portion of my grandmother's stash and has been sitting in my stash for a few years now, waiting for me.  And since I need some new summer clothes...I am fake smocking...

 I basically just tidied up the edges (to make sure they were perfectly straight) used my serger to make a rolled hem all the way around all the edges, sewed it up the back, and then cut a long rectangle of something I believe is satin (also from my grandmother's stash) and rolled the hems around all four sides to be used as a liner in the bodice portion.  Now I am just following the dots in the fabric to make a series of "tubes" into which I will insert some elastic to make it look like smocking (at least that is what I am hoping for).  I have left an opening to insert the elastic but I can't really take a picture of it until all my tubes are sewn up.

You can kind of see on the inside that it will maybe look smock-like when it is done.  I had to leave the top for now so that I will be able to insert the straps (I don't do strapless...it scares me).
This is how far I got before the pedal on my sewing machine got to hot to touch.  It does that every once in a while.  I think it is getting tired.  It is, after all, older than I am.
So, I will link this part up with Keep Calm Craft On over at Frontier Dreams and hopefully I will have some more to show you shortly...you know, when it actually starts to look like something. Also linking with Stash Bash with Crunchy Catholic Momma and also with Needle and thREAD over at In the Heart of my Home.

Edited to add: I forgot to mention my book.  I have just finished "Kilmeny of the Orchard" by L.M. Montgomery.  I loved it as I do most of her books even if they are predictable.  I love the way her characters "speak".

And a sneak peak to my Eat what you grow/Grow what you eat post that will be coming on Friday:

Part of our dinner tonight was homegrown salad with 2 kinds of lettuce, radishes, sorrel, and peas.  Pretty yummy, but I am looking forward to a little more variety in the next few weeks.