Annali's Baby Blessing Dress

Okay, so here's the deal.  I was gone for a long time, but I never stopped planning and taking pictures for my blog.  So I have a lot of making up to do with some old projects and stuff.  And I'm trying to do better...really.  So here is my first post from the past..

Annali's Baby Blessing

Jason blessed her on May 5 (random fact: Jason proposed to me on May 5, 2011).  I did a few things for the day that I want to share, so to avoid making you read a novel, I am splitting this up into a few different posts and tutorials.

I made her blessing dress and it turned out so beautiful, I surprised myself.

*I usually can't sew anything without a pattern and very detailed directions.  So this is super easy.  And those that do sew really well, you probably know a billion ways to do this better and I should take lessons from you.  Also, I am a completely visual learner, so there are a lot of pictures.*

I got my inspiration here and here and then did my own thing.

I started out with a onesie and just hand sewed some trim around the neck and the wrists

Next I did the skirt.

I started off with a yard of ruffled fabric found at rufflefabric.com.  Then I measured Anne just under her arm pits and cut the fabric one and a half times her width (at the time she was 15 inches around so I cut the material about 23 inches).  Afterward I wished I had doubled her width so that it had a bit more flow and less up and down action.  I also cut it so it would hang a couple of inches past her little toes.

Next, I made a casing at the top for my elastic.  I used 1/4 inch elastic...little girl, little elastic.  It worked perfect.  (But I didn't insert the elastic yet)

After I sewed the casing, I pinned and sewed the skirt together.  Folding it in half, with the ruffles together on the inside and pinned the edges before sewing.  Now, I don't ever pin this much for a straight line, but I had a million ruffles that I needed to keep in line so it would look nice.  So I put a pin through every ruffle, lining them up nice.

And to remind myself not to sew through the casing (you need an opening for the elastic) I double pinned.

And voila!  Perfect (mostly) straight lines.  Placing a million pins is so worth not having to unpick later.

To insert the elastic, just stick a safety pin on the end and thread it through.  When you have gone all the way around sew a few stitches to keep it together then sew your casing closed.  Easy, peasy!

Now for the "hard" part.  Bringing the onesie and skirt together.  Just measure and pin where you want the skirt onto the onesie and sew right around!

 

You could leave it at that if you want.  But I wanted to hide where the two pieces meet up and I wanted to add a bit of color too.  So I got a ribbon and a flower to put around her like a sash.  And this part really was hard...for me.  I couldn't figure out how to put it on without making it impossible to get it on her.  The ribbon doesn't stretch you see...so I was stumped for a bit, a long bit.  I had to put it away for a few days so I could think about it.  Finally I came up with a plan.  Not a perfect plan.  Clearly I need lessons.  But here is what I did and it worked and was unseen for the most part.  I ended up sewing one end of the ribbon onto the dress, sewed some velcro to the other side so the ribbon could go around her and velcro closed.  Then to hide that I put a flower over it.

 And it worked!  We were able to get it on and off of her without having to fight the constraints of the non-stretchy ribbon.  Like I said, not perfect but it worked, and I'm sure there was a much easier/prettier solution...I just couldn't come up with it.

And there you go.  A beautiful baby blessing dress.

 And a beautiful baby in her blessing dress.