THE DRESS

I got an itch. Ya know, one of those "I need to do _______." My sister tells me that when I get one of those I'm supposed to go lie down until the itch goes away. Once again I didn't listen to my sister.

The itch was that I thought it would be fun to make Emmi's Christmas dress. Every year she has a special holiday dress to wear to church on the Sunday before Christmas. The last two years she has been able to wear the same dress (only because I bought the thing big). *smile*

This year while shopping for fabric I saw a display at JoAnn Fabrics. It was a pretty holiday dress in gold and black. The bottom of the dress was gold with little Scotty dogs in velvet. I decided that it looked easy enough (large snort) to make.

So I took Emmi back to the store with me to let her see it and to pick the fabric. She chose blue instead of the gold, but she too liked the dress. We bought the fabric ($14 a yard) and headed home. Now I just had to make it. *smile*

The day after we bought the fabric I decided to get started. I cut out the bottom of the dress, and then while cutting out the top portion I realized that I had cut the bottom a size too small. (smile fades). I decided to push on and if the dress turned out not to fit my daughter, I was just going to have to pass it on to my niece.

I got the bottom sewn and the top sewn, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to gather six feet of fabric into a 14 inch waist....so I stopped for the day.

A week or so later I picked it up again and managed to gather the waist (just don't look to closely). My smile once again grew. Now it was on to the zipper. *rolls eyes*

I'll start off by saying that I HATE zippers. Hate, with a capital "H". They are soooo not easy to put in, and rarely do my zippers actually look good. But I knew going into this project that I would have to put one in the dress, so I dug the zipper out of the bag and got to work.

And presto.... the zipper went in with no problems. *Cheshire cat grin*

I call Emmi down and have her try the dress on.... and...boom... my smile fades. The fabric around her bust is too big and gapes open at the back by the zipper. So yup, you guessed it, I would have to re-due my perfect zipper.

NOOOOTTTT. So I put the project away for a few more weeks.

Yesterday morning I was feeling chipper enough to tackle the project once again. I had thought the zipper issue over and come up with a plan. I didn't really have to re due the whole zipper, maybe, just maybe I could just re due the top portion and have a little pleat halfway down her back. Then I could do a hook and eye at the top of the zipper. (I tell you, I would have done anything to keep from having to pick out a zipper.

With a smile on my face again, I got to work. I fixed the top of the zipper and put the little pleat in and tried it on my daughter. Wallah (just how do you spell that word), it worked. Yes it looked a little strange, but it worked.

Then I realized I didn't have a hook, or an eye. So I looked for Velcro... and nope, none of that either. I knew I was going to have to be creative. So I racked my brain for about an hour and came up with a plan. (play scary music here)

I went upstairs looking for a blue or black button. We searched all of Emmi's old clothes, my button collection and then went digging through my very old shirts. That is where we struck gold... or better yet, we struck blue...a dark blue button on a shirt that had to be at least 10 years old and was being used as a nightgown

Then I created a bow out of some leftover blue fabric, attached it to one side of the dress above the zipper and used the button to attach the other side. AND IT WORKED.

The only "duh" I did was that instead of attaching the button to the bow and putting a button hole in the dress (the easy way), I attached the button to the dress and then had to create a button hole on the underneath side of a very tiny bow. But either way, it worked.

And my angel wore her "Made by Mommy" dress to church today.