Blessing Dress

When I found out I was having a girl, I immediately wanted to make her a blessing dress.  We blessed my boys at two weeks old, because my parents and sister were in town.  The boys weighed about 5 pounds, and nothing fit them, so they were blessed in too big onsies and the only preemie brown pants I could find.

They were cute, and it was special, but I feel a little bit bad that they didn't have special blessing clothes.

My mom had mentioned saving her wedding dress and making blessing dresses out of it, but after 6 grandsons she got rid of it. However, she surprised me with this dress. 

This is the dress that I wore when I was blessed or when I came home from the hospital.  My mom couldn't really remember.  It was a long time ago, I'm not sure I would remember either.

So, now I had this dilemma.  Should Ladybug wear the same dress I wore when I was a baby, or should I make her one. 

She does look cute in my old dress, doesn't she. But the dress isn't as long and flowy as I imagined a blessing dress would be.

I kept coming back to this post on "Make it and Love it"  and thinking, I can do this.  Ashely makes some fabulous tutorials!

I started off by making a bodice out of some yellow cotton I had lying around.  That was pretty successful, but attaching the sleeve didn't go over well.  I decided that I should stick to using the sewing machine for curves or tight spaces, and only use the serger for straight lines. (Heck -- I've had the serger for a couple of years now and just now replaced the thread that comes on it with big white cones.)

I headed to Hobby Lobby.  I bought fabric -- some crushed polyester and lining.  I can't 'actually' sew, so I was being brave --  I was going to sew something that wasn't just quilting cotton.

This is what I came up with.  I'm pretty impressed with myself.  The dress isn't perfect -- it's too big, the sleeves aren't as ruffled as I would have liked, and my blind hem isn't so blind.  But I made it.  I'm still debating putting a single satin flower on the waist.  What do you think?

Ladybug, who never spits up, spit up when I tried the bodice on her.  I'm pretending that doesn't mean that she hates the dress. I'm also not taking any chances and trying it on her again before Sunday.