On the surface it looked quite straightforward and I thought it might be a nice quiet activity to make together in the lodge after a day out. Silly mummy! The contents of the kit itself are really good, but the suggestion that we would be using double sided sticky tape to hold most of it together didn't equate to something that would last long being 'loved' by a three year old. After some persuasion on my part we agreed that we would use the sewing machine at home to make the dress, so once we got home and unpacked it was my first order (more like ordered) of business.
Bella is really keen to get involved whenever I'm sewing, so this was a good opportunity to start introducing her to the basics. After learning how to thread up the machine and some advice about being careful with the very sharp pins (please!!) we started to assemble the dress using a combination of the machine and some hand stitching with colour blend thread.
The bottom of the skirt was already partially assembled, which made me rather happy because it went together quickly. Attaching the bodice and the sleeves was a little more problematic because it was so damn fiddly!
The bodice part of the dress was subjected to some of the dressmaking techniques that I learned on my course and we decided to add a press-stud fastener to the back of the bodice for a couple of reasons. First, because of the way I'd faffed with it, it didn't joint together and looked odd. Secondly, Bella has a fascination with wanting to undress and re-dress dolls, so it seemed to be a sensible addition. The hair was cut into lengths - with my big girl wielding the scissors no less - and tied together, which was strangely satisfying and actually worked out as I wanted it to (which makes a change). Finally the eyes and mouth were supposed to be attached using the sticky-back on the felt, which again didn't suggest durability of more than a couple of hours, after which I would spend countless hours looking for the bits. Too much of my life is already devoted to the location of lost/hiding toys so I did a quick stitch in each eye (ouch) and a line of running stitches across the mouth for the selfish reason of my own sanity (and also because I didn't want it to look too creepy too soon)!
The end result was something that we were both really pleased with, although now that Bella knows we can make dresses for the Princess doll, I have a sneaky suspicion that I will soon be making many more from the off cuts of my bigger (and seemingly faster) projects. Two happy princesses:
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