It's a Twirler!

Many of you know we have a wedding in our family that is quickly approaching, and I'd been given the task of making a flower girl dress for grandgirl. When I made the prototype a few week's ago, it was in a crash-course 6-hour sewing session. Whew. For the real thing, I approached it much more slowly. Like 1 step at a time, 1 session at a time, over the course of a week.

First up was pre-washing the fabric - I washed the ivory batiste, but not the "coral reef" dupiani silk. First time I'd pre-washed in a looong time.

Next was cutting out the pieces. Pattern pieces were provided in the tutorial for the bodice. The skirt and sash were cut by measurements only.

 Another night, I made the button loops; the next was the bodice.

I covered buttons for the prototype right along with the ones for the flower girl dress. I had forgotten how easy this is! The dotted ones are single layer fabric, but the batiste ones are double layer, which seemed perfect.

The skirt was another session. I forgot to take a photo, but I will say I really liked the method used to apply the bottom band to the skirt. In my case, since the skirt wasn't lined, and the batiste was fairly thin, I actually double layered the fabric - made two identical skirt pieces and then placed them wrong-sides together, treating them as one as I added the band. Worked like a charm, and really was no problem as I gathered the skirt later.

The step of inserting the gathered skirt top into the open bottom of the bodice was the trickiest part, at least for me (both times). This time, I marked the 1/2" seam allowance of the skirt top with a removable marking pen, and that really helped as I inserted and pinned liberally. Sewing it wasn't really as tricky as getting it ready to sew, which was a relief. And from there - adding the sash, and sewing on the buttons - it was a piece of {wedding} cake. Or wedding cheesecake as the case may be!

Ok, so ready for the photos? (Wasn't it handy that I had my latest FAITH Circle quilt hanging on the design wall between quilting sessions?)

Sweet huh? I give "The Party Dress" a thumb's up - lots of photos and clear instructions. Though I was a tad stressed making it since it was for such a special occasion, and I haven't done much garment sewing in recent times, it really did go together smoothly.

I''ll let you in on a little secret. While you're going about your business today, reading blogs, hopefully sewing, and in general doing what you need to do, I'll be busy . . . decorating pews, dressing up, and celebrating the marriage of our son to our lovely daughter-in-law-to-be. And precious grandgirl? Well I'm fairly certain there will be twirling involved. And then there's those flower girl duties. Good times.

Linking up with Fabric Tuesday.