Summer Project

At the end of each school year the girls usually receive a small gift and we go out for ice cream.  This year my small gift turned out to be a rather large gift, since I did not do my research beforehand to find out the cost of the project … a sure sign that I am not a sewer!!

The girls have been learning some basic sewing from their Aunt Jess and since they love acting as pioneers and were busy building a pioneer fort in the barn I thought it would be neat if they could make themselves pioneer dresses and so when patterns were on sale I bought one for each of them.   This was wrapped with a (homemade) gift certificate to purchase the material and items needed to sew the dresses.

So off we went one day to Fabricland … shock of all shocks when we discovered the price of cotton and gingham and such.  The kind sales lady finally directed us to the upholstery section, telling us that many custom makers use this instead because it’s cheapers.  At a third of the price as the original cottons and such that we were looking at we were able to get material and such … needless to say, far more then I had wished to spend, but a lesson to do my research first next time.   It is no wonder people do not sew anymore, even the cheaper material is waayy to expensive.  This play custom ended up being much more then I would spend on a Sunday dress for the girls.

Marietta’s pick

Rebecca’s pick

 

All things purchased came to …

ouch … (should have just searched online for some pre-made customs)

The idea of this gift was to give them a project to work on during the summer.  Needless to say the summer was so busy that they hardly had time to work on it and it’s still not done.  But in September they were able to get the main dress done … now just the pinafore and bonnet is left to get done.  The problem is also that I do not sew and we need guidance from Aunt Jess as when I read the pattern it feels like I’m reading a different language and I have no clue what it’s saying. 

We worked together on the project.  I would usually work along side Rebecca with our machine and Jess would work with Marietta on her machine.  Hopefully this way I can learn a bit and maybe the next time around we can do it without as much guidance.

Cutting out the pattern

Cutting out the material

 

   

What we accomplished after our first afternoon together

Another afternoon together and we were able to get the dress done … except for the buttons and the hem, which the girls have since completed.

 

I had purchased a size 10/12 and a size 14 pattern thinking that way they could make two different sizes so they had lots of room to grow.  Once we had a look at the pattern we ended up going with the smaller size and even so it’s still quite big.  So some day we might actually get around to putting together the pinafore and bonnet and completing the project.

After spending all that money on 4 pieces of material (okay to be fair half the money was spent on the notions) I found all this material on Kijiji for $7.  Plenty of pieces large enough to make dresses.  Maybe the girls will figure out how to do it on their own with time and be able to do some more projects, regardless they got lots to work with without having to be worried about how much money is wasted if they make a mistake  … if they could just find the time.