Sewing and Korean connections

                       

The cat dress. The first time I set my eyes on this dress I was in love. I'd seen it everywhere on the interwebs but $180?? I looked at the construction of the dress and I knew that I could make mine for a fraction of the price...I just had to get creative.

I knew the dress was block printed so I got myself a block printing set and carved out my own cat stamp. I used mint green fabric instead of the white cotton as that's what I had on hand. I lovingly hand stamped each kitty cat onto my fabric, left it to dry and heat set it later.

 

From there I just made my own dress pattern and bam! I finally had the cat dress I'd been dreaming of for the last year. I also made a baby version with a smaller block print. I think it's ridiculous when mom's match their children but I kinda think it would be insanely cute to see a mom with black tights, a bomber jacket, flats, red lips and her daughter with a little yellow cardigan on top in these dresses together. Wow. That got really detailed. Well, there you go. You've just entered into the mind of Madie.

There are so many benefits to making your own creations. I didn't spend almost $200 (crazy). I learned a new art form. If you haven't tried block printing, it is so great. And the best thing is...I made it. I like my dress more because it took a lot of effort and when you put time into something, you take pride in it. I plan on making this dress in the white like the original. 

Not to get too deep here but...the only thing I know about my birth mother was that she was a seamstress. That's it. Nothing else. I've held onto that one little piece of information my whole life. I used to imagine what she used to sew, where she worked and I created my own little stories about her from that one piece of info. Then I was adopted into a family with an aunt that did wonders with a sewing machine. She made her nieces beautiful dresses and about a year ago I asked her to teach me. Immediately I fell in love. I'd like to think my love of sewing came from my birth mama. There's something about my little act of sewing that makes me feel connected to the special woman that not only gave me the gift of life, but gave me a better and greater one.