Hello Hive

Happy new week to my beloved community. I hope that we are up bright and happy to embrace the new week. Like we all know how busy the start of the week can be, I am already up and have achieved a lot for the morning. I started with a routine check on the garden before hopping on my machine to continue working on the recent contract I got.

Doing what you love consistently keeps away every form of negative thoughts; this is what sewing does to me. Whenever I am sewing, I get so engrossed and forget about everything else except the creative work in my hands. All my creative imagination is put to work in a bid to bring out the best of what is at hand.

Sewing some ordinary wear may not get me as serious as when I need to sew a birthday outfit. Birthdays are special moments, and everyone wants to appear with a unique touch, most especially when it is our baby's birthday. Celebrating a first birthday is always a remarkable one; hence, I'm trying to do all I can to give the projects at hand the most unique touch for my neighbor's daughter. She will be celebrating her first birthday, of which both the family and everyone are looking forward to this day.

For this week I will be sewing at least 5 changes of raiment for her. In a bid to maximize the budget, the parents are planning to get her a cake and also do some photoshoots to keep a memory of this day. They are pleased with me to work with the amount they have at hand.

I will be making both traditional and English wear.

Today I sewed a ball gown out of an African print fabric.

Started with cutting the fabric to the baby's measurements.

Then I added some hairspray to give it some firmness. Cutting the neckline I made the front a a round neck while making a lower V neckline for the back

Cut some linings in the same pattern.

Then proceeded with the sewing of the fabric.

After I turned the necklines and joined the shoulders together, I decided to embellish it with the little rhinestones I have remaining in the house.

There goes the front and back blocks.

Next I cut out an 11" lower block to be gathered for the ball part of the dress, but after sewing this together, I realized that the African print fabric was very thin and wouldn't give out the firmness needed.

Lucky for me, I have some bridal net at home. This I brought out and cut out some 10" shorter than the dress I was working on. I then pleated it on the dress before closing it up with a lining of similar length.

Foe the stitching you first stitch the fabric to the upper part of the dress then the hard net follows covered by a layer of satin or lining to cover the hardñet so that it wont cause any discomfort to the dress when work.

There goes the 3layers neatly stitched in

The bridal net gave it the most desired fullness, and this is much better.

I'm just glad that I am able to assist the family and still get some beautiful outfits sewn for their daughter even when there is not much finance at hand. Rather than buying some expensive clothes from the market, I will be making all the other wears, and I hope that they all come out great on our baby when she goes for her photoshoot.