Lily in a dress I sewed.
28 July 2008

My mom bought this fabric (the fabric in the above picture) for “instant dress” when she visited this past summer.  She wanted to sew it together with Lily while she was here.  All you had to do was sew a seam up the back and sew on straps.  But we were so busy while Mom was here that she didn’t have time to do this project, so she asked me to make the dress.

Fast forward a couple of months, and I finally pull my sewing machine out.  Lily, being a child, is instantly curious and wants to be a part of the action.  So she puts the pins away as I pull them out, and she presses the “reverse” button on the sewing machine when I need to reverse.  We had a really good time together sewing this little dress.

Then Lily says that she wants to sew a princess dress together.  So we went to Jo-Ann Fabrics together, and she picked out a pattern and fabric (shiny candy-apple red by the way).  I read the How-to on the inside of the pattern last night, and there are all sorts of things that I do not know how to do: sewing darts, zippers, slipstitches, make “thread carriers” (whatever those are), working with slippery, shiny fabric, etc.  I’m very excited and a bit intimidated.  I plan to take it slow and with lots of help from my friend, the internet.

There is a stark contrast between my experience sewing and my experience writing.  Since I am a beginning seamstress, I don’t expect my work to be the most amazing thing ever created ever, and so I have a really good time sewing.  I torture myself when I write.  The joy was lost somewhere along the way between learning the craft and mastering the craft.  Who wants to be a master if the very thing you love is no longer enjoyable?

I’m looking forward to making this candy-apple red princess dress for Lily.  Now I just need to Google “sewing darts”…