Lillyamae's Blessing Dress

Ok everyone, I am so excited to post these pictures. Does anyone remember my oh, SO cute niece Lilliamae that I did newborn pictures for??? 

Well I had the chance to take some pictures of her in her blessing dress just recently and you will never believe where we found the materials used in her dress! Does this shirt look familiar?

When doing Lilly's newborn pictures (CLICK HERE TO SEE THOSES) her mom and I ran to D.I. to find some textures materials We found a few old shirts including this one that worked perfectly!

As I was cutting off the ruffled sleeves of this shirt off I had the idea to use them as a little skirt in our pictures!

 The rest of the ruffles we used in the background of the pictures 

After our photo session my Sister-in-law liked the lace so much that she decided to use it in Lilly's blessing dress and it turned out AMAZING!

The blessing was up in Provo and my family was staying at my Aunt's house who is also an avid garage saler. When I was asked to take some pictures of Lilly's dress I scrounged around for some cute props. My eyes settled in on this antique toy baby craddle. My Aunt bought this for $7 at a garage sale! It was perfect for the pictures!

Here are some pictures of just the dress.

Using the lace off of a shirt we found from D.I. was pure genius! Here is my Sister-in-law's explanation of how the dress was made and a picture of the materials:

Basically, in a nutshell, what I did was I took a onesie that I knew fit her well, and turned it inside out. Then I traced the outline of the top and made sure to trace it a little larger for wiggle room. I then free-handed the shape of the skirt. I left the front piece of the dress that simple shape, but wanted the back to have buttons, so I cut the back piece in half hot dog style and added a little extra down the middle for seams. Before I put the front and back pieces together, I folded, ironed, pinned, then sewed down around the collar and button area in the back to give them a finished edge. I then sewed the two back pieces together and then the front to those pieces. After all that work I realized the dress was way too small since she had grown a good three lbs since I made the pattern (you really have to plan ahead with babies and always leave way more wiggle room than you think you need... or just do it the easy way and use a pre-made pattern). To make it fit her I had to add additional fabric in strips on the sides under the arms and in the back. I also added a triangular shape and gather in the front to make it a little more interesting. Finally, after weeks of work and a lot of trial and error, I was able to hem up the bottom, add the lace from our shirt from D.I to the sleeves and bottom edge, put on the buttons and button loops, and add the flower embellishment over the gather in the front. It was a ton of work, not for the faint in heart, but the results were well worth it!

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