So [Sew!] Blessed

My mom is an amazing seamstress.  She made my prom dresses, my wedding dress, Marley's blessing dress and Cohen's blessing tuxedo.

I have plans to preserve these blessing outfits in shadowbox frames which I will give to my kids when they are older.

So when I found out that my mom wouldn't be able to make Lennon's blessing dress (she was in St. George helping my brother with his new business and wouldn't be home before the blessing), I didn't know what to do.  I couldn't just buy a dress - that wouldn't be special; and I couldn't have her wear Marley's because then she wouldn't have her own to keep in a frame. So I made up my mind.  I would make hers myself.  Even if it turned out disastrous, I figured it would be special because Mommy made it.

Keep in mind, I don't sew. My mom bought me a sewing machine several years ago in the hopes that I might follow in her enormous footsteps. (I say "enormous" figuratively of course; my mom wears a size 5--yet one more thing I did not inherit from her). This sewing machine sat in its box for months at a time and only saw daylight when she would come to visit. I once tried to follow a pattern for a summer dress for Marley (with my mom supervising--and ultimately doing all the work) and I got completely stuck when the instructions on the pattern said, "fold and press".  I carefully folded it over as directed and  pressed my finger onto the fabric. Flummoxed, I turned to my mom and said, "I'm pressing it! Now what?"  . . . You can guess who does the ironing in our household.  My philosophy is, why iron it if it's just going to get wrinkled as soon as you sit in the car anyway? Oh, and that's about the time my mom went ahead and took over the summer dress project (deeming me hopeless, I'm sure).

Luckily for me, just around the time I decided I'd sew my daughter's blessing dress, I discovered Pinterest.  I started pinning tutorials for pillow case dresses and onesie dresses.  Since I knew I couldn't follow a pattern, these tutorials were perfect for me.  For my first attempt, I took a onesie and a pillowcase, cut them each in half and sewed them together.  Easy peasey Japanesey. Nothing fabulous but a finished dress nonetheless.

First ever sewing attempt. Notice how crooked the seam is. Rookie! But I did learn how to gather.

By the way, did I mention that I didn't even know how to thread my stupid machine before I took on this project? I had to spend a ridiculous amount of time watching obnoxious YouTube tutorials just to learn how to thread that bleeding bobbin. (Incidentally, they were only obnoxious because I'm impatient. I'm actually extremely grateful to people who will post these educational videos for my benefit; I think we need to come up with a modern Poster Campaign that says, "Everything I Need to Know, I Learned on YouTube".)

Anyway, my next attempt was a to combine a white onesie with a white pillowcase and add a few embellishments like ribbon and rosettes (which I learned during this process as well) in an attempt to make a simple blessing gown.  Success again!  This one could have been the dress.  But you'll notice, the fabric I used to make the rosettes was from old, dingy pillowcases.  White dress + dingy off white rosettes = No gracias.

2nd sewing attempt. Hide the crooked seam by adding rosettes--Genius! I have now graduated to first string Junior Varsity.

Then, Pinterest delivered again producing a dress I loved with a website that had a tutorial. I knew how to thread my bobbin at this point, so I decided to give it the old college try.  The tutorial was written for people who have some experience with sewing so there were several times I had to read the instructions over and over and slower and slower until they started somewhat making sense.

"6. To attach the ruffled bottom to the now ruffled top, turn the skirt inside out. Slide the ruffled onesie into the tube/bottom until the top of the tube meets up with the fabric strip ruffle. Lift the ruffle and pin the top of the tube under the ruffle on the onesie. At this point, the inside out, upside down ruffled bottom should be pinned in place on the onesie."                                  [www.kojo-designs.com]

Say what??? For as much sense as it made to me, this step might as well have said: "6. Fold and press." But you better believe I kept at it. I ended up messing up and taking apart and trying again and practicing on scrap fabric and poking myself with pins and cursing at my sewing machine until it worked.  But in the very end, mission accomplished.

 And my little model made it look even better than I could have hoped.

Lennon's blessing day was perfect.  You may recall that we blessed Cohen in the mountains so we blessed Lennon on the beach. Her namesake Tia flew over from Canada to be here for the special occasion. All our favorite Hawaiian friends came. There was a beautiful spirit present that day.  I felt the love of my Hawaiian ohana that was there, my family that couldn't be there, and even my dad who was probably there.

Proud Papa

Our family of 5

Ohana

With Tia and Sophia - (shout out to Tia who made all the delicious food and took all the pictures that day - Mahalo Tia! I couldn't have done it without you!)

I'm so blessed to have this beautiful little angel in my life.  And thanks to this blessing dress adventure, I've discovered a hidden talent appreciation for sewing.  Maybe my sewing machine won't collect dust between my mom's visits anymore.

Beautiful Baby