Sewing A Dress For Lily

Let me start this post by saying that my mom is super patient. :o) I mean obviously, she had ten kids & she has several grandkids & great grandkids that she has over at her house, sometimes several at one time. But during this whole process, she did not once say, "Seriously, a pattern would have been nice Jenny!" Or "How do you think that is going to possibly work?!?" Nope, she just let me tell her what I wanted & she guided me to what turned out to be a very cute dress for Miss Lily. :0)

It all started when I saw this super cute bee material while I was at the fabric store with my mom. Usually when I want something sewn, I ask my mom to do it, but this time I thought maybe, just maybe, I would be able to do part of it. So, I got more fabric, some cute buttons, and then later got a black tank top for the top part of the dress. I told my mom what I wanted. She patiently explained that she did not think that was what I wanted. I told her it was & showed her a picture of something like what I wanted. She said, Ok & we got to work.

I wanted to sew layers of the material like this. She said I needed to gather the material. Thinking that this was going to be too hard for me, I said, "No, I don't think it needs that..." (You know, because I am SO good at sewing....) ;0)

So my mom pinned where I needed to cut....

and I cut out the strips of material.

Then I pinned where I wanted the first strip sewn on the top:

Then again, my mom said, " I don't think that's what you want. It's going to be straight down." But I wanted it to flare out. So guess what? I needed to gather it a little bit. She knew that from the beginning, but never said I was wrong, just patiently listened to what I wanted. Even at the age of 35, my mom is still patient with me. :0)

So, she put a gathering stitch in for me...

then sewed the strip together...

and sewed it on to the top:

It needed to be gathered so that it would fit the tank top, but be bigger at the bottom, so it would eventually be fuller the farther down we went on the dress.

She gathered the next piece for me, but then I sewed it to the dress! :0)

Not too shabby....

Now, I was going to put in a strip of just black, but we thought the dress would be too long then, so we skipped the black & went straight to the bumble bees!

I tried sewing this piece twice, but something kept happening to the thread. My mom said it was the machine. I think it was the operator... ;0)
So, she finished it for me. (With no problems..) Then she put in the hem.

I sewed these buttons on (there's one on top of another) to the top:

Then I had Lily try it on. She LOVED it!!

I think she looks very cute in this too!

Thank you to my mom for helping (A LOT!!) me with this dress. I really appreciate your patience & your fabulous sewing skills. I look forward to more sewing in the future. (and next time, I'll get a pattern!) :0)