You can make ANYTHING with a BERNINA!

As you may be able to tell, I'm not much of a quilter. I'm not awful at it, but when I look at the quilts Joy, Suzie, Kendra, Marcia, basically EVERYONE at Pine Needles makes, mine PALE in comparison. I'm not jealous - I'm just in awe and inspired to keep getting better :) 

My jam is clothing - the more over the top, the better. I've made everything from epic Halloween costumes to Disney-inspired dresses to visit their theme parks to full court dress for a trip to Versailles - including the corset to support it all which was more like building a bridge than sewing clothing. I've even made my own regular day-to-day bras (I'm a weird size - small cup/larger band, so it's really hard to find good ones for me). 



Of course I've made the gamut of shirts and tops and pj's and every kind of matching clothing for children and dolls, but what I especially love is a challenge

I also love a time constraint, because my procrastinating heart seems to only get into something if I only have about 10 minutes to do it. (If BERNINA ever does a reality show where people need to make crazy things in a short time frame - like all those baking challenge shows - SIGN ME UP). 

Basically, if you see an item of clothing and think to yourself, "can people even make that at home?" you can be sure I'm here for it.

So, what do I do when my daughter and I decided to run the Princess 10K at Walt Disney World? I ordered some spandex and learned how to make athletic wear! 



Most people dress in costume or at least a "bound" where they theme their running gear toward a character, location, or concept in the Disney parks universe. The theme of the 10K this year just happened to by my 12 year old's favorite princess - Rapunzel, so we're "running" with it, so to speak. 



I found a pattern I liked for both her running dress and mine that I could slice, dice and alter to fit the costumes, watched the movie to take some screencaps and use them to recreate the embellishment in my BERNINA E16's Design Shop software from Melco (my Cricut handled the center panel because it was more a jacquard than an embroidery like the outer panels, so I thought the flat iron-on would mimic it better). 

I was a little worried about embroidering on the super stretchy spandex, but I shouldn't have! The E16 handled it like a dream - absolutely gorgeous and no puckers or weirdness. 

I used my BERNINA L890 to whip up the stretchy dress in mere moments. That baby zings! The dress even has a built-in bra! And it came together lickety-split with BERNINA's amazing machine! 



I have 8 days to finish the accompanying costume for myself - it's a mashup of two running dress patterns I found that will hopefully come together in the end to make me into an evil witch. (Don't ask my kids on a day I have to wake them up early, or they'll tell you I should just wear my regular clothes for that costume...)

Wish me luck! (Also wish me luck with the whole getting up to run a 10K at 3am my time - it's gonna be an EARLY morning for a late night seamstress like me!)


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