Pink lace

Last week I conquered my fear of the stretch stitch!  I don't know what my phobia was about, except that I remember the year I thought I was going to make myself a swimsuit....pssshhhhhttt.  There was lots of stitching and stretching and tearing out of stitches and re-stretching, re-stitching, and tearing out...you get the picture.  I think I may have actually cried that day.  I found the mutilated fabric and pattern the other day when I was cleaning out my fabric cabinet.
I am slow, but I CAN eventually conquer my fears.

I have a really good client, I call her my "original" client, who lets me experiment on her and her daughter.  She brings me clothing items she has found on sale along with fabric and I get to duplicate the items.  Sometimes we use sleeves from one item and bodice of another and add or delete ruffles.  It is so fun!  Last week I told her that I found some pink stretchy lace and bought it for another project but had a lot leftover and did she want me to make her daughter a lace blouse to match hers that had been hanging in my sewing room as a prototype for something I was working on for her?  She said that would be fine.  I love her.

So, I took a deep breath and switched my machine to "stretch".  A really crazy thing happened.  I had so much fun with the stretch stitch!  It is amazing!  Did you know that if you use a zigzag stretch stitch @ 3 on the edge of unfinished stretchy lace it will actually "eat up" the lace and finish the edge?!? 

Just like that!  I did not know this...until I tried it.  I want to use it on everything now.
So here is the finished blouse.  It's really cute.  You will probably see more stretchy stuff in my repertoire from now on (wink, wink).