Obessed With the Dress

JuneBug Dress

I have a three year old princess living at my house.  I think any one who has a daughter and owns a sewing machine thinks at some point that it would be so much fun to make hair bows, fancy onsies and, of course, dresses.  Even before my princess was born I wanted to sew her dresses.  This JuneBug dress is the first dress I ever made.  I found the tutorial from CraftinessIsNotOptional.com.  The tutorial has a printable pattern and pretty good instructions. 

Let me calm your worried heart by telling you that these pictures are not photos of my first attempt. This is my first attempt:

Not bad you say?  I will give you a closer look. 

Things I learned:
1. Read the pattern first, and then follow it.  I was too afraid to use the footer that makes button holes, so instead, I decided I would put in a zipper.  A step I was not prepared for.  Notice how there are no buttons in the front? This forced me to alter the flap in the front... I had no idea what I was doing.
2. It's okay to sew really slow at first.
3.The color of thread does matter. (Blue thread with a white zipper -- you can see how not straight my sewing was.)

4. Sew the proper seam allowance. Below is a picture of the sleeve.  You can see that the fabric is coming un-sewn because I didn't give 1/2" seam allowance.

5. If you don't have a Serger, finish off the edges with a zigzag stitch.  This is the inside of my dress.  Even though this isn't seen when the dress is being worn, it is a mess!  The fabric is fraying, the wrong color of thread was used, and the zipper...Oh, the zipper.  When finishing off an edge with the zigzag stitch, it is okay to cut off all of the extra fabric.  It will no longer fray, and it is much cleaner.

I  can just hear all of my many followers saying to themselves that even though there were mistakes in my first attempt, it is a lot better than they could have done.  I challenge all ya'll to try.  The tutorial is simple enough and I bet it will turn out a lot better than you think.  Ready, Go!