A labor of love...

I've mentioned before that I take sewing classes 2 times a month. I L-O-V-E the uninterrupted 3 hours of sewing time I get every other week. Usually we work on whatever individual project we're interested in and our teacher is there to guide and instruct as needed. But sometime around September or October...it's fuzzy when we started...she decided we would all complete a yoke dress as a class project (if you don't know what a yoke dress is, have no fear, I'm going to show you the completed project shortly) and Karen, my teacher, likes for us to work on one dress in class and one dress at home so that we're sure the lessons we're learning sink in...a teaching method I would whole heartily agree with...but don't always follow. Anyway, Karen knows I love smocking so she suggested I do the variation of this pattern with smocking along the top of the skirt...great, I thought, I'll do both my dresses this way...mistake #1...although it didn't take long to smock either of these dresses, I didn't always make time to sit down and finish what I started. So I finished the skirt for my class project but when I started sewing the dress together I decided I had picked the wrong size and it would be another year before Ruth Ann wore this dress...mistake #2. I finished my class project with the expectation of a few finishing touches (hemming, sewing on buttons, sewing down the neck band) and also finished smocking the homework assignment...which actually was pointless since I really couldn't remember much of what I had done in class...so together they sat in my sewing bag until one night when I decided to relocate my sewing stuff into a basket for class. I ran across my dress and thought I should try it on Ruth Ann and not just assume it would not fit her this year...and to my surprise...it fit! This sent me into a slight panic because I had not made the first attempt at sewing the second dress and I couldn't waste perfectly good smocking and the fabric. Since completing our dress in class we're back to working on individual projects, so I have made completing the 2nd dress my class project. But today I sat down at my sewing machine to figure out how to hem this dress and then sat down and sewed on some buttons. You wouldn't think that in the grand scheme of sewing a dress together that these last steps would be too bad...but for some reason to me they are the steps a dread most...but I set out to finish this dress so Ruth Ann could wear it church tomorrow...here's an early preview...



It's so cute and I'm so proud of myself...I'd be even more proud if I had made it all without any help, but Karen was there to guide me at each step of assembling this dress so much of the credit goes to her! It's really precious and I'm thinking I may try to make one each spring for Ruth Ann...but I'll need to get more efficient with assembly since this one has taken me 6 months to complete!