Grace's Dresses

This Labor Day weekend, Jennifer and I decided to pull our company out from the closet (literally) and make two dresses for our adorable three year old cousin, Grace. We had no idea what we were getting into! We thought this would be a simple task of making a sundress for a 3 year old, but a late night and faulty machinery would prove to complicate this otherwise simple task.

Jennifer and I took Grace's measurements, cut out our own dress patterns, found some beautiful, lightweight, and durable fabrics.

Grace's play dress fabric

Grace's business dress fabric

Our spirits were high as we began to cut and sew at 8 p.m. By the time we took our first break at 1:30 a.m., we had each gone through two cans of Dr. Pepper, an espresso, and a bag of chocolate chip cookies! Everything became funnier and funnier as we tired, so we went to bed and tried to finish the dresses in the morning before Grace woke up. However, the sewing machine that we had recently had repaired decided it wanted to break down again. We were dismayed as we realized we would not be able to finish her dresses by the intended deadline.

The dead sewing machine

Therefore, we decided to take a trip to JoAnn Fabrics! As anyone who sews or does any handmade products knows, when you go to JoAnn Fabrics you come out with more purchased items than intended! This, of course, was the case with us! After browsing the fabrics and buttons we had to agree to stay on task and therefore leave the store as soon as possible to get out with money still in our bank accounts!

Our temporary sewing machine

After a couple more hours of sewing (and being informed by Grace that we were nuts as we entertained her) we finally completed Grace's dresses. (Yay!) We finished in spite of our sewing machine breaking down and accomplished what we had set out to do. The difficulties we faced in this project made it feel very fulfilling to complete these dresses. We also learned to always have a backup machine, even a handheld! Grace was so excited to have her new dresses that she wore one to bed! Unfortunately, we were unable to get pictures of Grace modeling the finished dresses because all the batteries in the house were gone!  However, I promise to post pictures as soon as we get them!

We learned several valuable lessons from our Labor Day excursion: 1) Designing simple patterns is a great way to craft unique, versatile clothes; 2) Repairing a sewing machine is not easy and, 3) if you are faced with adversity, don't forget to laugh!