Perfect Party Dress? Perfect Play Dress.

I believe the strength of a good pattern is in the flexibility and in the finishing. The Perfect Party Dress has both in spades. That's why I'm really excited to be part of the Tie Dye Diva Perfect Party Dress Blog Hop hosted by Kathy of Handmade Dress Haven. If the hop brought you here and this is your first time visiting The Inspired Wren, welcome! Take a look around and you'll see I sew a lot of clothes for my five year-old Peanut, crochet a little here and there, share a new sewing tutorial every first-Tuesday of the month, and host Inspire Us Thursdays: Sew Needle Stitch Hook, a fiber-niche link party each Thursday. 

But today let's talk about this Perfect Party Dress. It really is perfect. Usually the first time I sew a pattern, I follow the directions exactly. But this is such a classic silhouette with beautifully clear pattern directions that I didn't need to. It’s such a solid pattern, I’ve already sewn it twice.

One pattern. Two very different looks.

Inspire Us Thursday, April 24!

It's time for the Inspire Us Thursday! link party. Fire up your favorite post from the week and get ready to share and to be inspired. This week stay around and click on a couple of links. Try checking out the links immediately before yours and after yours, you may find yourself inspired by something new.

[Clockwise from upper right] PiePie Designs; Bugaboo, Mini, Mr. & Me; Deux souriceaux; and Threading My Way.

Spring Mini-Collection Mix & Match

Project Run and Play, Season 9 has come to a close. I had a great time designing and sewing (along) toward specific challenges. There is something wonderful about defined limits on a project that makes my creativity stretch. I knew in advance I wanted the pieces I produced for PRP to mix and match (and be truly wearable), so I've been referring to it as a mini-collection. Five looks, four challenges. Casual to formal-dressy.

Project Run & Play, Season 9 Mini-Collection -- Spring Green

Signature Style

It's the final week of Project Run and Play. I started this blog so I could play along with PRP. And now it's Signature Style Week. In all the seasons I've been reading along, I've been thinking about this question. So I started this season with a list to define my signature:

• It has clean lines and few embellishments. It's the subtle details that make it special. And hopefully it's impeccably finished.
• It is easy to wear for everyday life. It’s not special occasion, it’s not for one-time use. 
• It’s not twee. It may be youthful, but it's not sentimentally cute.
• It’s feminine, but not girly. There’s not a ruffle, nor any pink, in sight. Perfect for The Peanut’s personality and you can tell because she lights up when she wears it. And that’s my ultimate goal.

Inspire Us Thursday, April 17!

Let me start this week by saying I am blown away! by the response Inspire Us Thursdays has received. When I was first dreaming of this party I was simultaneously excited about a fiber-niche party and worried that I would be lucky to have half a dozen links because of the narrow topic. Thank you for putting my fears to rest. And now you have to keep coming back because not only do we have a great deal of links, but all of the work being shared is fabulous!

Patchouli Moon Studio, Art Bella, France Nadeau, and Gracious Threads

Kids Clothes Week, Days 5-7

Days 5-7? HA! I was going strong. I was sewing AND blogging. Daily. And then...it hit. Just when The Peanut had powered through a week of being under the weather, and after seemingly five minutes of health, a 24-hour stomach bug entered our house and decided to stay for 72 hours (24 hours x 3 people = 72 hours of misery). We are on the other side now (oh, Dear Lord, please!). We are all recuperating and the house is fully disinfected (I hope). Sewing should resume later today.

Coat in progress.

Before I realized the 24-hour bug would be jumping to my stomach immediately after The Peanut's I managed to sneak a little sewing in toward Project Run and Play Week 4.

Kids Clothes Week, Day 4

It Kids Clothes Week! In honor of KCW, and for just this week only, I will attempt to blog daily and document all sewing [through mostly cell-phone pics]. 

Kids Clothes Week: Sew clothes for your kids. One hour a day. Each day for seven days.

This afternoon I was able to complete an entire pair of cropped jeans for Project Run and Play. It helped that I had already cut them out on Day 2. 

 How fabulous is that green pocket-lining and top-stitching? Bonus view of my week old, sewing machine induced, thumb blood blister.

Inspire Us Thursday, April 10!

It's time to link up! But first, I want to take a moment and thank everyone who participated in last week's Inspire Us Thursday! link party. I was hoping to have a dozen people join me, I was excited to have so many of you join me and thrilled that we managed to get some knitting and cross-stitch, too! However, having never hosted a link party before I did not take into account how difficult it would be to choose features.

The Itinerant Seamstress, Conversas de Hemanas, Megilibrium, and Giggles & Beans.

Designing for Easter

Finally! Done. And photographed. Project Run & Play Week #3, Design My Own Fabric:

She really wanted this week's photo-session chocolate and was willing to be posed like a delicate lady in order to get it.

Project Run & Play Week #3, Design Your Own Fabric Challenge: Print, dye, color, paint, stencil or whatever else you can think of to design a fabric that is all you and then use that material to create an outfit!

Kids Clothes Week, Day 2

It Kids Clothes Week! In honor of KCW, and for just this week only, I will attempt to blog daily and document all sewing [through mostly cell-phone pics]. 

Kids Clothes Week: Sew clothes for your kids. One hour a day. Each day for seven days.

I spent two hours this morning working on this:

Inside-out dress: lined bodice with a pop-of-color underskirt.

Kids Clothes Week: Day 1

It Kids Clothes Week! In honor of KCW, and for just this week only, I will attempt to blog daily and document all sewing [through mostly cell-phone pics]. 

Sew clothes for your kids. One hour a day. Each day for seven days. 

Today I was able to sew for about an hour and half. I am still sewing along with Project Run and Play, and I'm still running a couple of days off schedule (thanks to a couple of sick and snow days between Weeks 1 & 2). This means I'm still sewing for Week 3.

Inspire Us Thursday, April 3rd!

It's time for the inaugural Inspire Us Thusdays Link Party! Come link up!

We'll Spring Break in France, s'il vous plaît

Today is a special off-schedule post so that I can share my Project Run & Play Week #2, Spring Break Challenge solution. I so wanted to get this posted on Monday, but it snowed (again!) on Sunday (March 30th! Why?!). So I gave myself grace, and time to find some sunlight for photos, and pushed this back until now.

Strolling on the Seine? Or heading for the gangway on the cruise ship?

Project Run & Play Week #2, Spring Break Challenge: Design an outfit inspired by your favorite vacation spot (or day-dreaming vacation spot). 

TUTORIAL: Lined Canvas Tote

Create a fully-lined canvas tote with an outer pocket and reinforced bottom!

In the midst of sewing along with Project Run & Play, I took a detour to sew up this tote as a gift for a friend. I chose it because it can have big impact and yet it really is a quick project to put together once you have the cutting dimensions figured out. It just so happened I still had my sketch from the Tote of Protection with the numbers already jotted down. As long as I was already sewing the bag again, I thought I’d share the dimensions (and the directions) here.