Sunday, August 29, 2010

Lainah's Blessing Dress--A Personal Masterpiece

I have so much to learn when it comes to sewing. Sometimes, I get so frustrated because what I envision and what actually gets made are usually two different things. My knowledge and skills don't match up to my expectations I suppose. But, this time, with Lainah's blessing dress, it all just sort of clicked. It isn't perfect, but I think it's as close as I've ever come to designing something beautiful in my mind and then making it come to life in my hands.

Lainah is our third daughter, and each of their blessing dresses have been different. Different patterns, different fabrics, and just different designs. With each, I tried to make something that I felt would reflect a little bit of their sweet, fresh from heaven personality. With Lainah's I really wanted something to show how special our 5th baby was to us. I wanted her to know that mommy spent just as much time and effort on her dress as I did the first. I wanted it to be intricate, but also delicate.

I couldn't possibly go through the directions here on the blog, it was too complicated, but basically, I found a dress pattern that fit as closely to what I had envisioned in my mind as possible and that's where I started. Then I had to add layers, or improvise in order to stick to my own design for her.

These little flowers and ribbon made the front so cute, and they also went really well with the skirt fabric, which was an organza with flower embroidery. So beautiful.
On the back, I put the little white satin buttons, and brought the ribbon around her waist to tie in the back, leaving long ribbon tails going down the length of the dress. I also kept the sleeves unlined, so that you could see her cute little baby arms underneath. I didn't want the dress to overpower the baby, I wanted it to be delicate like she was. Here is the back view of the dress. I added a strip of ribbon around the bottom of the skirt to match the ribbon on her waistband. And the front view. And here is our beautiful little girl modeling the dress herself. So perfect.

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