A first communion dress

Some friends asked me whether I wanted to sew a first communion dress for their daughter. So I did! I let Nohre’s parents choose the fabric and the pattern. A great match! I proposed to make it a tad more special by adding an asymmetrical detail. I love this little figures on the Wee Wander fabric, so I wanted one to ‘sit’ on Nohre’s shoulder in the final dress.

The orange fabric was a nightmare to work with. :( Way too slippery to make perfect parallel pleats. I spend about one hour to just cut the front panels of this dress! Can you imagine? But I am happy with the result in the end. It just had to be perfect. Especially for this occasion.

To challenge myself a little bit, I choose to sew this dress without one single locked seam. For the skirt part, I’ve sewn French seams and the top piece is closed by hand. You can almost wear this dress inside out. So don’t you every use the excuse that you don’t own a serger and can’t sew clothes for this reason! ;) Yes you can! It just take more time…. Haha!

Before I started cutting these beautiful fabrics , I made a quick test version. I’m glad I did because I changed the fit of the pattern a bit. The original pattern is from SVDHZ1, but I had to change the bodice part. Nohre’s waist is really small, so I think I took 2cm away at both sides (at the waist). This is a SVDHZ size 6-8 that I changed to the measurements of my own 5YO Lotta dress bodice. Perfect like this!

I’ll show you pictures with the little girl after the big party! Can’t wait to see her running around in my handmade dress. Sewing this dress made me enjoy sewing again. No Compagnie M., no pressure, I even took the time to sew by hand. Can’t remember when I last closed a waistband by hand! Definitely too long ago!