I'm sew crafty!

So this weekend, I embarked on a new journey. I decided to make Sophie a dress. Well, it actually started a few weeks ago when I decided to make Sophie a pillow case dress. I pulled out Grandma Bixel's sewing machine and went to work. What resulted was, well, a very ugly something-or-other that looked like a flour sack. Hardly dismayed - in fact, inspired! - I went to WalMart to purchase some cheap fabric and a cheap pattern to make Sophie a dress. It's gotten hot here in Kentucky and Sophie usually runs around in only a diaper or nothing at all. But when it's time to go outside, I want to throw something on her. Pants AND a shirt are MUCH to cumbersome. So what I had in mind was a dress that she could plan in, get dirty, spin and frolic and just be a KID in. I must say... it's so cool.


I finished it after Sophie went to bed, so there are no cute pics of her in it, but trust me, there will be plenty!

I have to stitch the final hem, but that's it. My first sewing project is done and, I think, a complete success. Oh sure, there are lots of mistakes and I learned a LOT, but it will serve it's purpose and it was really fun to make.

This is what I learned:
1. Follow the pattern. Roy will be the first one to tell you that I do not read directions. I'll fumble through a recipe, throw bulbs in the ground upside-down and too close together, and put toys together backwards. But wow, if you don't read the instructions for the pattern, you are SCREWED.

2. Patience truly is a virtue. I'm certain there is a book out there written on the zen of sewing and I just might have to get it. It's laborious to pin and look and pin again and take out the stitches you screwed up and realize you should've left holes where you sewed and oh, so THAT'S what those little holes on the pattern were for. But it's really worth it to stop, look, take your time and do it right.

3. You can buy a dress for $5. In fact, I picked an adorable little thing up off a 60% off clearance rack this evening for nearly nothing. But it was so much fun to choose the pattern and material to make this dress, and when I see Sophie running around in the mud, splattering all over the bottom, it will make me so happy to know that all my hard work paid off. And that I can let out the hem as she gets older and she'll be able to wear it for a long, long time. Assuming the straps hold.