A new dress for ...

So I don't know if any of you follow or have heard of Craftness is not Optional. I found several of her sewing tutorials showing up on my boards on Pintrest. I went to her blog and pretty much fell in love. I decided to try one of her tutorials this week. I chose the vintage heirloom dress. I thought it was adorable and thought it would look lovely on Penny.

 So I started out by tracing my pattern and cutting out all of my pieces. Here is where I made my first mistake (Apparently it is some sort of cosmic rule that I must make at least 2 mistakes with every project). The shirt i used to trace my pattern from fit Penny just fine, but only because it is made of knit. I also thought that because my child is half the age her child was, the scallops needed to be smaller. I don't know why I thought this but I did.

The scallops were the most difficult part for me. Eventually I got so frustrated with them that I decide that letting them look like an 8 year-old sewed them just gave them character. I also can totally see why she used piking shears. I have since added them to my crafting supplies wish list.

The sleeves were not as bad as I thought they would be. I had never made sleeves this way before, and found I liked it better. I think i may have gone over board on the pins though.

In the future, I think I will wait till after I have sewn the under arm and sides to add the bias tape trim. It would add a little extra work, but I think the finished product would look cleaner.

My favorite part would have to be the pleats. Normally I just gather up the skirt and slap it on there. But I found I actually enjoyed make the knife pleats. I loved how much prettier and cleaner they made the final product look.

So in the end I had a very cute (but definitely not perfect dress). The only sad art was, it didn't fit. Penny is a bit of a chunk and the dress just squeezed her cute little rolls a bit too tight. I had to have some satisfaction for my efforts though. So I held off putting on the zipper and squeezed her into it anyway.

She didn't seem to mind though. If anything, I think she liked the dress (or maybe it was just Mommy making faces to keep her attention). Sadly, the dress will have to wait for the next little girl to be born, but luckily I have enough of the material to make another dress for her. I think I will make a different one this time. I'll have to post my own tutorial for it. Well, I hope you enjoyed my joys and frustrations.