A bit of sparkle in the gloom

I had originally planned to sew myself a dress to wear to my brother's wedding.   I even bought the Appleton dress pattern and some fabric to sew it up. As time drew near, however, I made the uncharacteristic decision to save myself stress and not try to do all the things, and went shopping instead.  

I got really lucky and found a beautifully fitting princess seamed lace fit-and-flare dress at, of all places, Dress Barn. I find the name of the store really off-putting, but I had received a coupon in the mail and there's one near my house, so off I went.  Dress sorted, the only thing remaining was to decide what to wear over it. I had a number of appropriate shawls, but one day I found myself with a couple free hours, so I sewed up my fifth Lisbon cardigan (affiliate link) in a metallic knit from the stash.

I sewed the cropped variation with a few mods. For this one, I went down to a 10 shoulder and graded to a 12 bust. I sewed a thinner bottom band and left off the buttons. When it was done, I found that the sparkle wasn't reading as much as I thought it would be, so I spent a few evenings embroidering beads on it.

It was a very satisfying project.  I was so busy during the wedding that I didn't have time to do any proper blog modeling, but here are the two photos I could find.

I know I've already posted about how much fun the wedding was, but it's good for morale to keep reminding myself of it.  Because two days later, my husband had open-heart surgery for a problem that we thought wouldn't need addressing until his 50s. Then not two weeks later, we found ourselves back in the ER and were admitted for another surgery to fix complications arising from the first.  We spent a lot of time in the hospital in November, and the few weeks since at multiple doctors' appointments each week.  He is at home recovering now, but I have to say I wouldn't be sorry to never enter a hospital again.

That was the last thing I sewed for about six weeks.  I'm finally back at the machine again and have finished a few things for me that I'm looking forward to sharing.  We just need some sunshine so I can take photos. Our winter has been warm thus far (and I'm not complaining), but a little dreary too.  Is it spring yet?
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