The ribbons are tea-dyed silk. I originally had them a lighter shade, but decided the darker color looked more old-world. Anyway I’m going to post larger pictures for everyone to see… enjoy.

“The Bonnet”

“The Front Bodice”

“The Back Bodice”

“The Dress Full Front”

Conner William Scott

And we got very good news today, Conner is coming home! A little less then one month after his early arrival he’s almost 5 pounds and has his dad’s very healthy appetite.

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I’m very conscious of all the wonderful things in the sewing room that can cause physical harm. Scissors, rotary cutter, pins, needles, irons, sewing machines and other assorted items.

Over the years I’ve managed to hurt myself with all of those items – more then once! I have a standard lecture for anyone new to sewing or for those that help me about just how badly hurt you can be if you don’t pay attention.

An hour ago I was in the sewing room trimming some fabric with the rotary cutter and clear ruler. I don’t have the strength in my hand or arm like I use to, and the hand holding the ruler slipped. This was not a good thing.

I seriously cut into my right forefinger – think sliding the blade up the finger with force – with the rotary cutter. My brain fortunately kicked in immediately and I managed to press hard on the finger to stop the blood from going anywhere and not get any of the Christening Dress.

Muttering a non-stop series of ohmygods, I raced to the bathroom for band-aids; it’s amazing what you can do with your teeth. After slapping two regular ones on and watching then get soaked immediately, I ran to get the giant sized ones – 3″x 5″ – and wound it tightly around; from big knuckle to over the fingertip.

Then came the shakes and tears of course, and lets not forget the berating – lots and lots of berating!

I’m typing with one-hand and a few fingers; I’m left handed, and the mouse is on the right side with the messed up hand/finger, it’s weird trying to ‘click’. Let me tell you, stupid thing hurts.

No more sewing or work for me today. I’m going to go do better living through chemistry with a nice pain pill. You know, I’ve been told before that my sole purpose in life is to serve as a warning for others…

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The slight texture of the fabric and sense of ‘age’ seems to come though after that just-pressed look is gone. It’s a rather delicate fabric to sew with, but the results are simply wonderful.

So what brought this to mind is I just finished attaching the skirt to the bodice; it’s not pressed – not even the new seams, inside facing isn’t finished, skirt lining not in – but I’m so happy with it!

Some pictures for you. The first is a full length view of the front of the dress with the back pinned closed.

Next is a close-up of the bodice-skirt joining, and lastly a small view of the hem. That hem is hand picked; took about two-hours to do.

I tried a machine blind hem on some test fabric first – played on both sewing machines – but I just didn’t like the way it looked. Then I decided to try some decorative embroidery stitching wondering if that was going to create that perfect something. Nope. That just detracted from the look even more!

Remember my first description of hand sewing the binding on the sleeves? Deja-vu all over again with the hem! This time though I kept shifting the hem to different heights trying to get the best non-blurry view.

See my glasses are designed specifically for my sitting distance to the computer monitor screens – not for hand sewing. The monitors distance is about 18″-19″ from me. You cannot hand-sew at that distance; well I can’t easily at least. It was an interesting exercise once I figured out why I was having a totally different problem trying to sew the hem.

I’m going to make good and sure Conner wears this Christening Dress for at least six-hours… wonder if I can tie in a fair-use clause?

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I ended up with three groups of three-vertical embroidery designs running down the front of the skirt. Repeated the pattern used on the bodice and added a complimentary version that was just a tad lighter.

Plus I got to finally do my box pleats!

Next was sewing the back of the skirt and adding the little ones name and birth date. Normally I’d do that about 2-months after the dress was sewn – but in this case our early arrival meant I could do it now.

Actually, it was a whole lot easier on the nerves being able to do it at this point. Before I’d be a basket-case adding the name to a fully finished and used dress.

What if I misspelled the name? Or tore the fabric? Or lined it up badly? Or ran out of thread? Or….or….or… yep I’m my own worst enemy sometimes. Sorry the picture is so bad, but you get the idea.

Okay time to sew the skirt sides. Because I used a French Seam on the sleeve underarm seams, and the back of the skirt, it stood to reason I’d do the same for the sides.

Pin, sew, press, trim to under a quarter-of-an-inch, re-press, turn the fabric inside out, and fold and pin to finish the French seam. Wait. What? No! NONONONONO! I didn’t – did I really?

Yes, Ann you did.

I sewed a beautiful seam, or it would be if I had been doing a normal seam. But for a French seam it was inside out. Now some people at this point would cry, but not me. I proceeded to question – quite loudly – my parentage, sewing skills, intelligence factor, common sense… and then I dug up my repertoire of swearing in Polish and German.

I remembered a lot!

I flatly refused to cut off that seam, that meant only one alternative – I got to try out a new rolled hem foot on a machine I’ve never used it on, on a Christening Dress for my nephew. No pressure here.

After several tense moments of testing – it sewed beautifully. I love my Janome machine.

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Someone decided to make an early appearance – two months early in fact. Introducing Conner William Scott, 3 lbs – 8 oz, 16″ long with a very powerful set of lungs!

Our first picture of the little guy with a phone camera (how did we live without those things anyway). Mom and son are doing great, Dad is preening.

The Christening Dress is going to be a bit big, but he can grow into it! Besides, Conner’s going to get to attend his own baby shower now. He’s started out life doing things differently – gotta be my nephew.

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I’m one of those people that stands in front of the microwave tapping her fingers waiting for the hot water to nuke for my coffee. I’m mean come-on – we’re talking 2.30 minutes here… I could be DOING something!

Being that impatient has come back to bite me in the past – and well golly gee, it just did it again. Golly gee?

In this case though, I’m going to plead for a bit of understanding. Remember when I told you about using Perfect Sew and how absolutely wonderful it is? Well…. I didn’t follow my own advice, hence the ‘I’m a beginner sewer’ comment.

I’ve been fighting with the design for the Christening Dress skirt. I’ve folded, and tucked, pleated and then box pleated, gathered, marked, measured, pressed and pinned, sketched and probably a dozen more things – but still wasn’t happy. Grumble. Grumble. Grumble.

Finally, I thought I try using the same embroidery stitch that I’d used on the bodice and sleeves, down the length of the skirt, maybe bracketing it with a complimentary design on each side. In fact I could do that across the whole front and only gather the back of the skirt! That just might work.

Well of course I had to sit down and try the first three rows immediately to see if – Yes! – this was going to make me happy. I didn’t want wait and use Perfect Sew, instead I grabbed my roll of ‘doctors paper’ and cut several long strips. I normally use this stuff when doing a lot of satin-stitching as a support; for that it’s ideal.

The vertical embroidery looks like it’s going to do it! I’ll need to probably put three groups of the combination and two stand-alone lines – that will look good.

As you can see from the picture, the combination does look good – but, these are delicate stitches and I have to remove multiple layers of paper! What was I thinking!

I very carefully got as much paper removed as possible by hand (do not ask how long that took) and then filled the sink with warm water. Yeap, the skirt is soaking now and I expect it will for quite a while yet. I’m sure I can find something else to do… while I wait. Irony bites.

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When I was making those dresses before I didn’t wear glasses and I always used a #12 Quilters Between to do the handwork. Now if I even want to read anything, I wear glasses – a decently strong prescription. Last night I sat curled up on the futon with a bright light right next to me trying to hand sew the binding on the bottom of the sleeves.

Picture this: you’re sitting straight up, knees to chest, elbows flat to your side, and hands at about chin level… maybe a bit higher. That’s how I was sewing last night.

Tone-on-tone ivory fabric and thread; I simply could not see. I did manage to use a size #10 Quilters Between – after I finally got it threaded.. you don’t want to know. Well, humbling is suppose to be good for you every so often.

Okay then, this first picture is of the three bodice pieces doing their Frisbee imitations – stiff as a board. The decorative stitching is in place and the shape is only a rough cut.

I threw all three pieces into a bowl with warm water and let them soak for about 1o minutes time; each bodice piece is two layers thick. While the pieces soak, I had to lock the cats out of the room – it was way too much temptation to play in the water.

Then one quick rinse in clean water, and blotting the excess water out on a towel. When the pieces were barely damp, I used a dry iron to finish the process and gently press out any wrinkles.

After tracing the exact pattern shape on all the pieces, they were cut to size. The shoulder and side seams were simply 1/2″ seams since the entire top would be lined. I put together the lining – same as the decorative outside, less the decorative stitching, and very carefully sewed it into place using a 1/4″ seam allowance. The entire neck area is understitched. Did I mention I can’t see well on this fabric? Nose to the machine needle and cat watching intently from 10 inches away.

The sleeves have decorative stitching lines that are used to create a deep pleat – it’s gorgeous. They open slightly in the bodice and with movement. The underseam is French seamed since this seam won’t be hidden.

The last picture for this round is below, and it shows the completed bodice. Finished sleeves, decorative stitching on the bodice, connecting band with embroidered pattern for a nice bodice-to-skirt transition. Next we tackle the skirt!

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That meant Sunday was devoted to ‘tracking down fabric’. It took awhile, but I found some very nice ivory cotton batiste and voile. By the distance everyone was giving me, I have a feeling I was doing a lot of ‘talking’ while crawling around pulling bolts of fabric and comparing.

A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do!

I pulled out all the cotton laces – they’re white, and will be tea dyed – the silk ribbons, white also and on the same list for tea dyeing, silk thread, wash out marker, Fray Check®, both fabrics, silk pins, clear elastic and snaps, double pin tuck and wing machine needles, and generic Tylenol.

The big question now was: what do I want to do? I have absolutely no idea. Well let’s try a pleated bodice. We already know it’s a boy (at least the first one is), so I’m going to try to not drown everyone in ruffles, and pleats are a nice alternative.

I cut a strip about 10″ wide and pulled out the pleater board. The only trouble I ever have with very thin fabric is keeping the pleated strip straight. After filling the board I steamed those pleats into place, used 3 pieces of clear tape to hold them together and gently rolled them out of the board. It looks good! On to the sewing machine to run a line of straight stitches down each side and removing the temporary tape.

I laid the pleated fabric down and lightly traced the bodice front on to the piece. 15 minutes later I was convinced that wasn’t the way to go. AARRRRGGGGHHHH.

Time for a different approach. How about…. hmmm okay, yeah I think I’ll try that instead. Simple slightly decorative stitching using silk thread – vertically – combined with lace and / or entredeaux.

To do that though, I have to prepare the fabric. I take two layers about three inches bigger then I need, and place them on a sheet of wax paper. Then I grab one of the best sewing inventions in the world: Perfect Sewâ„¢ from Palmer/Pletsch. This is a slightly thick liquid that’s poured onto your fabric and allowed to dry completely.

After it’s dry, you can peel that piece of fabric off and use it like a Frisbee! You will experience absolutely no distortion when sewing on fine fabric. When I finish added any decorative stitching, I’m going to simply wash the stiffener away. I’ve been using Perfect Sew since it came out in the early 90’s. I love this stuff.

Now I wait!

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I admit it’s my own fault, but still… a little sympathy and understand would go a long way towards my conveniently forgetting a few issues.

So what did I do this time? I did what any good sister would do! See my brother Ray and his wife Bre are expecting their first child in a few months, and I asked if I could make the Christening Dress. I made the dress when my sister had her first, and I’ve made quite a few for family members.

Years ago I created these beautiful old-world style dresses for sale – special order only. Each dress was 42″ or longer, made from fine cotton or silk batiste, using tea-dyed cotton laces and silk ribbons. They were gorgeous if I do say so myself. Pin tucks, and gathers, ruffles, laces, bonnets and booties. If you visit the Gallery, you can see some of these dresses.

Each dress also took between 3 and 5 weeks to make. I finally got tired of paying for the privilege of sewing for someone else; I was barely covering the cost of supplies and my labor wasn’t even a factor. While I thoroughly enjoyed what I was doing, it wasn’t paying the mortgage. Major bummer.

Now we come to the part about my friends.

I created the last Christening Dress about 14 years ago. Since then I’ve gotten divorced, moved twice, gained a new snuggle-bunny, have more cats, gotten a new sewing machine, and have none of the supplies I need (or patterns I had created) to make the the dress. When I bemoaned my situation to these friends of mine what did they do? They laughed at me! In fact I believe Storm was laughing so hard she was crying… right before I got patted on the head.

I think what triggered the crying was when I told her I had to have it done before July 15th.

Help?

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