My friend's daughter, Toria is having a fancy tea party for her birthday this year and guess who gets to create the fancy dress. Yes me. Now I am totally happy to do this, Toria is the child I never had and always get to send home when the temper tantrums start, but its sewing.
If I could do it all by hand, I would, but thanks to some issues at work I can barely hold a N hook, not so much a little needle. But my sewing machine and I have issues. I just want it to work, and it doesn't always want to. I am sure the tempermantal machine would blame me for our issues: I'm not threading it right or the tension is wrong, but that doesn't explain how it works for the first 75% of the project only to stubbornly bind up on the underside halfway through a line of stitching.
I will persevere though. I will make a lovely dress for Toria's seventh birthday come Hell or tangled thread.
The shopping trip for the fabric was an adventure. Not only my first trip to a big JoAnn's store (our store here in YC is very small and cramped and doesn't carry half of what I saw that day), but choosing fabric was somewhat difficult. First there were my rules to what fabric. Now Toria and her Mommy might think I am a crafting wiz and can work miracles, but I know my limits, especially when it comes to sewing. Nothing too stretchy (I haven't sewn stretchy fabrics yet and don't want to experiment on this project) and nothing that frays too much on the bolt. Oh and the pattern had to be simple, clothing doesn't always work out for me.
Here is the pattern she chose. She wants version D, the blue version.
I also picked out a pattern that I think I will do for her, either as a b-day gift, or a little later. I love the shape of the hem. Mom wants all three pieces for her.
Why would I make another dress if the first is such a big deal. Well, I've made her one other dress, a simple tank dress out of Tinkerbell cotton. I figure if I can manage the party dress, then I'll try the next which has a more difficult hem to it. I've decided I want to start making some of my own clothes anyway, miniature child versions seem like a good place to start.
Okay, so simple is done. Now the fabric. She wanted Leopard print (she calls it baby jaguar, but either way its animal print for a tea party, but its her party), not only leopard print, but true to color print. She had her heart set on a silky print, that I actually thought was pretty ugly, but then I am not partial to animal prints. Note however, I said a silky fabric, and silky (rayon) fabrics fray a lot. So we had to find a way to steer her away from it and still find something she liked. (Toria was somewhat disappointed in me at this point because I could not fulfill her fantasy of a silky leopard print)
Mom and I really liked a pink and purple fabric with silver threads in it, very light and pretty, but she was not excited. We ended up in the quilter's cotton section. Now this I can sew, if only we could find something she liked. There was a rainbow striped fabric she liked, and we even found leopard print, pink leopard print to be exact. So we had four fabrics in the cart to chose from.
Remember, this is a fancy party and plain cotton is not fancy even if it is pink leopard print or rainbows. We headed to the trim aisle and she began picking out a variety of trims.
Once we had a selection of lace, ribbons, sequins and fur we set about establishing which she liked better. In the end she chose the pink leopard (Yeah, no fray) some pink bead fringe on light pink ribbons and a strand of gold sequins.
From my own fabric stash I have included some gold mesh for the waistband (maybe) and I may need more sequins. Soon I will face off against the machine, but I swear I will create a lovely piece of seven year old fanciness, even if I have to sit down and finish by hand.
Blessings,
Agate
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