Monday, June 29, 2015

Dress for a Flower Girl

Annie will be a flower girl in a wedding in August and yesterday I *finally* had some free time to work on her dress.  I based this dress on vintage Advance 7933, which I have made before in a pink-polka-dotted print.  This time I lengthened the skirt by 9 inches so it is floor-length, re-drafted the back bodice piece for a lower neckline and omission of back buttons, and messed around with it so I could figure out how to sew it without the bias binding on the sleeves.  Lesson: it takes a long time to simplify things...and to sew without instructions!

The bridesmaids are wearing "capri" blue, so I wanted to incorporate blue into the dress somehow. I made it in a white cotton sateen from the big box fabric store--about $7/yard. I bought some pale blue organza and tried my hand at an organza overlay, something I'd never done before!  I bought a wide pale blue ribbon to attach around the waist.  My goal was to make a comfortable dress because the wedding is outside, in mid-August, when our climate is usually *extremely* sticky and humid. Her hair will be up and she will wear a flower crown. 


Last night at midnight I triumphantly finished the construction and admired it, only to soon realize that I had sewed the front inside bodice piece to the back pieces when I attached the gathered skirt. I said things like "no! oh NO!" After the initial shock I ripped the skirt off, losing a few gathers in the process.  And then I went to bed. Lesson: when your intuition tells you to sew bodice pieces together at the waistline, do it

This afternoon I rallied myself and re-attached the skirt (after sewing the inside and outside back and front bodice pieces together!!!).  I'm celebrating by leaving it in my closet for a week or two before tackling the hemming.

Very simple and sweet!

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