create (Mama): smocked dress

I first started sewing when I was little. I would take scraps of cloths, sew them together, and called it a dress for my doll. Then I grew, sewed scraps of cloth into backless wonders that tied together, and called them shirts. Sewing was a free-form exercise to use what I already had to make something new. I never took scraps of cloth and sewed them using an honest-to-goodness pattern. Until now, starting with Billy's robot pants, here. And while I still intend to free-form it time to time, I'm amazed at how much faster it is to let someone else do the planning work for you. Someone who even makes sewing your own smocking a feasible task...

 And that someone would be Heather Ross in her book Weekend Sewing. I would love to explore the book more, but for now I am happy to work at mastering this sweet little dress. The first time sewing it meant definitely included some seam ripping- the top edge and me took awhile to come to a mutual understanding- as well as some hem redoes. Ross writes about this dress coming together in "under an hour," which is something to shoot for in the future.

My first attempt was probably three, or four, times that- but the end result is the same. And that's what matters the most, right? Especially when it's made for our little friend Eliza. A special little dress for a special little girl on her first birthday, which is always a special thing indeed!