A Project and a Hike

I bought this dress on a clearance rack, but it was a little too short for my long body (and by a little, I mean 5 or 6 inches!) I actually bought it shortly after Christmas, so this project was long overdue.

The original hem of the dress ended where my fingers are holding (above) and the panel of fabric below that was the lining on the inside of the hem. I bought the brown cotton to add a ruffle at the bottom for even more length.

I decided I had to pleat the ruffle in order to sew the blue panel to the brown fabric more securely. If I did it again, I would make sure the pleats were more even. I wasn't very careful about that.

That's what the inside of the bottom panel looked like before I attached it to the dress.

This picture shows the whole dress with the bottom panel below (before pleating.)

And here's the finished product! I actually finished the sewing on this the morning before I wore it to church. One of the blessings of having church start at 11:30. So my dress is now modest. Even when I'm sitting it comes just past my knee. This alteration cost under $6 for fabric and thread.

This is where we went on Saturday. The weather wasn't bad, but the sun never really came out. When we got up to Delicate Arch, the wind was blowing and it was pretty cold so we snapped a few pictures and headed back down.

It was fun to have people comment on how cute Mikey was while on the hike. Mikey did great. He and I were mostly over our colds, but his nose kept running because it wasn't very warm outside.

A little family photo :)

Kevin carried Mikey the whole time, which I appreciated. After having been cooped up in the house all week, it felt really good to get outside. I wasn't back up to 100% as far as my energy level, so we took it easy with a nice slow pace. We love living so close to these fun National Parks!