For my 3rd baby girl, I thought I would try my hand at making her blessing dress. In our faith, babies are not baptized or Christened, but can receive a priesthood blessing. While the white dress is not necessary, it does make the occasion special.I recruited the help of my friend, Julie. (She's pictured below holding the baby for a fitting while we try the lining on her.) Julie already had a pattern, and talked me through the whole process.
This extra picture is just here because I think my baby looks so funny!
At the fabric store I fell in love with the beautiful beaded fabric. Then I saw that it was $24.99 a yard.It was not on sale.
I did not have a coupon.
And the pattern called for 3 1/2 yards of it.
But, then, of course, I couldn't imagine using any other fabric. This is the curse of those of us with really, really good taste.
After looking at all the other options, we went back to this fabric, pulled out the pattern, and there in the store, figured out how to modify it so we could get by with 1 yard. Yes, 1 yard! That was in the budget!
I would have had loads of leftover fabric if I had bought that much!
I don't have very much experience sewing clothing, especially dresses, so this was a great learning opportunity for me. Julie is an expert, so I cut and sewed while she held the baby and told me what to do. (I am proud to say that I worked on some of this on my own, but figuring out a pattern is a lot harder than just listening to someone tell you what to do next!)
I didn't tell my husband I was working on this. With my huge collection of other unfinished projects, I knew it would be better to show him after it was finished... so I swore the kids to secrecy and went to work!I think this was great experience also because with 3 daughters, I may be sewing a lot of prom/homecoming dresses. Because it will be less money, and it's hard these days to find a pretty, modest dress in the stores, it's a good skill to have!
And here it is all finished:!!! (Except the buttons- but you can't see those!)
And she's not crying because she doesn't like it, she's just hungry.... again.
What do you think? (Oh, my husband was really proud of me. It was all worth it)