An Orchestra Dress

For three years now both of my daughters have been sharing one outfit for orchestra and band concerts and it has worked out pretty well.  A long sleeved white top, black skirt and black tights.  Amazingly, despite the fact that both girls have grown quite a bit the outfit still fits.  This year, my oldest no longer needs this outfit for band so now the outfit belongs solely to her sister. 

My youngest has been doing so well with her violin in orchestra and recently she also started playing the viola.  Now that she is in junior high and because the orchestra is a little bit more formal than the band I decided it was time my young lady had a nice new dress. 

My helpers

I had a pattern in my stash that I had bought several years ago and an idea in my head.  Of course my idea was met with some serious skepticism from my teenager (actually both of them).  Her thought was my mom is going to make me a dress and it is going to look like my mom made me a dress.  I could only imagine the thoughts coursing through her little mind.

About six weeks ago the girls and I went to JoAnns armed with coupons and said pattern.  I found the black fabric I was hoping to find for the dress and then I told the young one she needed to pick out the white fabric for the jacket that went over the dress.  She has great taste because the fabric she found was $18.99 a yard!  Fortunately we only needed a yard and it was on sale for 50% off.  The coupons we had saved us even more.  We got 50% off on the black fabric and an extra 20% off on the white.

Last month I managed to get everything cut out and then we went on vacation.  With a concert coming up I was beginning to feel the pressure to get this dress done.  My daughter told me not to worry about it because she still has her old outfit.  Uh huh.  I knew what she was thinking.

All done!

Sunday I got busy and put this thing together.  It took me ten hours to finish it and I was pretty happy with how easy it was to sew.  I had her try the bodice of the dress on once midway to check the fit and then again when it was almost finished to check the length.  Then I banished her until I was done.  At this point she still wasn't overly thrilled.

I had a package of black hem lace in my stash which I used so I could put in a nicely finished hem and hand stitched the hem with itty bitty stitches so it wouldn't show.  Using hem lace makes that task much easier.  I pressed the dress and hung it on a hanger.  My oldest got a look at it at this point and had to admit she was impressed.  Ah ha!

Love the sleeves on the jacket.  The fabric is really pretty too.

Then I made the jacket and for me that was a lot of fun.  I even finished the seams.  When it was done I had my daughter pick out a button from my button jar while I tied bows from white ribbon I already had and sewed them in place on the peek a boo sleeves.  Then I sewed on the black satin button she selected.  Perfect choice!

I gave her a pair of nylons and told her to grab her shoes.  After showing her how to put on nylons I helped her get dressed and told her to go upstairs check it out in the full length mirror.  She was so excited.  And I thought she looked just beautiful.

A special dress for my very special daughter.  She loves it and I love that she loves it.