This is for all you newbie seamstresses out there. (I wanted to say "sewers" as in "people who sew", but apparently it becomes "sewers" as in, the yucky places under ground. Sewers - my made up version - just seems like it should be a word!)
I bought this soft flannel fabric back in the beginning of December when picking up some festive fabric for bunting. I thought it looked wintry cheerful and intended to whip up a simple dress for my little babe to wear on Christmas Day. Well, the dress is finally done, with a little more than 24 hours to spare, and "simple" it was not!
I wanted it to be long sleeve and kind of boxy and swingy, to allow for all the movement my little babe is doing right now. I will state now that I am not a pattern kind of girl. And this caused problems. I now understand why people use patterns, but I still don't think I will use one. To many instructions to get hung up on; I would rather just go with the flow and do it my way, even if "the flow" stagnates for almost a month.
It took me forever to pin together, like two hours probably. The problem was the arms - how do I attach them under the armpit? And how do I know that she will even be able to MOVE her arms while wearing this? After sewing 3/4 of the tunic, I tried it on my wriggly babe. The body was too tight. No big deal, I thought, I'll just insert the extra red panel in the back. But then I realized that I would have to remove the stitches that sewed on both arms, which seemed like A LOT of stitches to this beginner "sewer". So I put it on top of my sewing basket, intending to work on it the next day, and it sat there for 3 more weeks. I had to move it every time I opened the sewing basket lid, but I could not bring myself to work on it. It was just too overwhelmingly confusing by this point. I had stitches everywhere and it still wasn't done yet.
So last evening, just one day to go, I got down to business. I removed the bum stitches, sewed some of the arms again, but then had to figure out what to do about the back. When I tried it on my little babe again, it somehow seemed too big now. I thought putting a button on the back would do the trick, but I just could not wrap my head around the actual mechanics. I have done absolutely no reading about sewing and do not come from a family of people who sew, so I am doing this on the fly. Finally I figured out how it should work, sort of, and ta-da! The three week, easy Christmas tunic is complete! It is not a work of beauty and it really isn't even that functional - neck line is too wide and slides off her shoulder - but I made it and gosh darn she is going to wear it on Christmas Day.
It is sort of like an operation gone bad - it has WAY too many visible stitches, but I couldn't figure out how to sew parts of it inside out. My little babe won't know though, she will struggle when I put it on her, admire it in the mirror, and then just keep on cruising. Looking totally cute.
(Sorry for the totally out of focus picture. My husband was making toffee on the stovetop and was yelling at the little babe to stay away, the dogs were going crazy because it was dinner time, and I just wanted one good picture of my work of art that I FINALLY finished!)
