Does It Come With Free Alterations?

"Does it come with free alterations?" asked Joe as I showed him the 1st dress I sewed for Wren.

"No, but all the mistakes I've made on it are included."

I tackled my first true patterned sewing task this past week. I'm still baffled by the instructions, though. After asking engineer Joe, googling it, watching a handful of video tutorials and more, I decided I'd just wing it and attempt to sew the arm holes and sleeves my own way. What was nice about this is that given I tried three different ways to make the four different arm holes, I have learned a little bit more about what works and what doesn't than if I had just followed the instructions. And know one would know the better just by looking at the dresses.

Both of these dresses were just "test" dresses to see if I could figure it out. I used fabric that was a decade old and has been sitting, untouched, in a Rubbermaid bin in the basement. As soon as I completed these and knew I knew what I was doing (at least enough to make a garment that resembles a dress), I was (1) off to the fabric stores, both online and offline :), and (2) surfing for countless free sewing patterns/tutorials. Essentially what I did was replace my Pinning of random crafty ideas to bookmarking a whole hell of a lot of sewing blogs/patterns. My reading list and bookmarks are nearly full with all the things I want to make.

So here she is...Wren enjoying (she won't take her dresses out of her mouth) wearing her first dresses made by mom! It's so cheesy, but I already have visions of my first granddaughter wearing this little dress. Or shirt. As Auntie Katie pointed out... I really need to make the next ones quite a bit longer so they are actually a dress and can be worn with tights instead of jeans.