Sewing a Baptism dress for Bella

My precious, first-born baby is getting baptized!! I can't believe she is eight and that she will be taking the important step of baptism. Normally, a child is baptized very soon after their eighth birthday, but Bella wanted to wait until the summer so that her Utah and Japan cousins could come.

And because I like to torture myself, I decided I just had to make Bella a special baptism dress (as my mom made for me and my sisters.) The thing is though, is that I'm really not a very good seamstress! I usually am miserable the whole time I'm sewing something because it feels like a really hard math problem.

BUT I decided to do it because I have three daughters and I wanted to make a very special dress that they could all wear when it comes time for their baptisms. When Bella was born, I made her a special blessing gown ( I almost had a breakdown making it!) and then Olivia and Cecilia both got to wear it for their blessings. It made things so easy that I already had a special dress for them.

So I had to make this special baptism dress. I even had the chance to borrow a beautiful one from my sister-in-law, that my niece Yazi had worn, but I just couldn't allow myself to take the easy way out. :)

So a couple months ago Bella and I went to look at patterns. We found this adorable Burda pattern. It didn't look too hard and I think it is very elegant. We are doing dress A, and I don't think I'll need to do the underskirt part. I bought a GORGEOUS hemp silk fabric. It is stunning. I also bought an organic cotton sateen fabric for the lining and some silk thread. The fabric sat for almost a month because I was afraid to cut it!!

Finally, last week I started the dress. I cut the pieces and started the sewing. I was very nervous because I felt intimidated by such beautiful (and expensive) fabric. I also was intimidated that it was such a "special dress!" But finally I started because otherwise it wasn't going to be ready in time.

So I've been working on the dress for almost a week. As I said before, sewing for me is much like a really hard math problem. Sometimes I have to read a sentence over and over again before the information sinks in. I have really prayed a lot for help and thankfully, my prayers have been answered. The truth is, I started making the dress wrong and I had to undo everything that I did and start over last Monday. Picking out a whole dress is not fun! But I was so grateful because I felt that the Spirit helped me realize what I was doing wrong. After I realized, the pattern made much more sense to me and everything I needed to do is now very clear. (Except for a couple of parts still!) Hopefully, it will all come to me! Wish me luck!