A Christmas Dress

One thing that was on my Absolutely Must Do Before Christmas List was to make my little girl a dress. I've been wanting to make her one for a while now and Christmas seemed like the perfect excuse. I've never made a dress before, although I've sewn quite a few simpler articles of clothing. I found a Butterick pattern for a cute party dress that didn't look too hard and after going Christmas shopping made a pit stop at Fabricland. I picked out some deep red satin and some really pretty embroidered organza. I couldn't wait to get working on it!

The pattern itself was quite simple and I was making the plainest dress. I sewed up the skirt first and then started on the bodice. Everything was going well, until I realized I was going to have to gather the sleeves. I'm not sure why that didn't occur to me sooner! (Not that it mattered - I still would have bought the pattern!) Gathering is not my favourite thing to do, but my mom told me if I hand basted the sleeve the gathering would go a lot smoother. And it did, but as I was gathering 5 miles of sleeve into 3 inches I couldn't help but think if Marilla had told Anne of Green Gables to make her own dress with puffed sleeves, if she wanted one so badly, Anne probably wouldn't have mentioned it again. I did, eventually, get it all gathered and I did get both sleeves sewn in. (Twice!) And if I thought gathering the sleeves were a pain, the skirt was worse!

I didn't quite get the dress done before it was time to leave for my parent's farm, which is where we were going for Christmas. I just had to hand stitch the lining of the bodice down and attach the ribbon - which I forgot to bring with me!!!

Regardless, the dress was still so cute and she looked like such a little princess.

My mom found an old flower girl dress and took the bow off of it for me to use.

I made a size 3 so it is just a little bit too big for her. It should fit her for a little while at least, which was the plan! Now that I've made one dress successfully I'm sure it won't be hard to find a reason to make another! Like my brother's wedding next fall!