Go, Lala! She Makes Her First Dress

Didn't Lala do a good job on her first big sewing project? She did 80% of the sewing on this dress. As she puts it, "Grandma did the hard parts."

Several years ago, when Lala was six, Uncle Robert gave her a toy sewing machine. Neither Jen nor I thought she was ready for it, so it stayed in the Christmas paper until recently. Lala has been watching her mother sew this Spring and she wanted to sew, too.

Out came the toy machine. Immediate frustration! It wouldn't work right. Stitches broke. It couldn't handle two thicknesses of fabric to sew a doll dress. The experience was horrible.

Her last bad experience was at my house around Easter time. We were making scrunchies for her hair. The toy machine couldn't even handle that simple a project. Remembering the advice "Don't start a beginner with inferior tools. It can kill the desire to learn," I gave Lala a REAL sewing machine -- my old Singer Merritt zigzag machine. She was overwhelmed! It was so big; so fast! It was really hers? She wasn't sure she wanted to sew with it, yet, so she decided it would continue to live at Grandma's house.

Fast forward to her visit this month. She has continued to try to sew with the toy machine at her Mom's but is totally disgusted with it. Now she's ready to use HER machine. I had some pink calico left over from a nightgown I made her. She picked the pattern and I cut out a summer dress for her. She was expecting me to make the dress, but I pulled out the Singer, and said, "Okay, Lala. You're going to make this dress." Her jaw dropped; her eyes got big. She had never made anything larger than a pillow before.

The dress was a Simplicity pattern. We read the instructions step by step and she did most of the work. I did the tricky things, like sewing the bodice lining and inserting the zipper. She and I both laid the hem using the built-in hem-stitch. Lala loved it. She's ready to make something else next week. Well, Hancock's Fabric has a 99 cent pattern sale going on. Perhaps we can go to Lawrence to the fabric store tomorrow...