Ladybug dress for McKenna

At Discover Sewing, where I got my sewing machine, great classes are offered every month.  August I signed up for a yoke dress class and had no idea what I was getting into! I started out by picking an adorable lady bug fabric by fabric finders, and then started the cutting.  And cutting. And cutting.  The pattern is “Lee”  by The Children’s Corner.

This was not only my first dress construction, but also my first smocking project.  The night before I started this dress I bought a book on smocking and did a little “crash course”.   It was neat watching my friend, Amanda, pleat the yoke.  And from there we “blocked” it, or squared it off to be ready for smocking.  I’m grateful to have a friend that has smocked (and sewn) and truly ridiculous amount of young girls clothing.

So I went to work on the smocking.  It took me weeks to get there, because after only 45 min or so, my eyes would start to lose the ability to focus!  I probably should invest in an Ott light!

When the smocking of the yoke was finally completed, I was ready (and eager!) to get the dress constructed!  What a learning curve!  Most of the things were pretty straight forward, but the part that was the hardest for me, and the most time intensive was attaching the sleeves to the yoke.  They were just tiny holes and really hard to manipulate with a standard sewing machine.  Amanda was at my rescue, and when I had almost reached the point of yanking my hair out, she oh-so-politely asked if she could “just borrow the dress for a few minutes”.  She was so considerate because she knew that it was really important for me to do the dress “all by myself” (yes, like a 5 year old!), but I just couldn’t get this right.  So once the arms were attached, I was successfully up and running again.

The last few hours of the project were spent doing the handwork stuff, like adding in the buttons, sewing the sleeve edges in, and sewing down the 1/2″ lining thing that goes just around the neck (can’t remember what its called!).  The dress was finally completed, and both my husband, Matt, and I were truly amazed at how cute it was.   I had decided about 10 hours into the project when I realized that this might turn out somewhat acceptable, that I would give it to my neice, McKenna, for her 2nd birthday.  It was very well received by her parents, and they said as soon as it fits her, they’ll send me a photo with it – and they promised to neither give it away or feed her spaghetti while wearing said dress :)  All good things!