A new challenge

I am attempting to make a christening gown - a daunting task made more terrifying by the fact that Mandy wants me to cut up her beautiful wedding gown for the purpose. Unfortunately it was stained at the wedding and no amount of dry cleaning has been able to remove the marks. It has been languishing in its box ever since the big day, waiting, it seems for a new role.



However, before I can even dream (in a nightmarish way) of touching the dress, I decided to make a calico mock up and today the littlest one had her first dress fitting. She behaved beautifully as Mandy and I pulled and measured and used a lot of guesswork as, of course, it was not possible to use any pins.



I am using an old traditional christening gown pattern and it is extremely long. I think I will reduce the length substantially as the only babies I have seen wearing a gown of this length belong to the royal family!

On the dress there is some beautiful embroidery and beading which we would like to incorporate into the christening gown, but this will be a challenge in itself as the previously mentioned stains are (who would have guessed) very close to the embroidery and on the largest area of fabric.



My next task will be to unpick the dress which will be hard enough, but following that I shall be handing the scissors to Mandy and she can make the first cut as I think I will be physically incapable of taking the scissors to such a beautiful dress. I only hope that I can do it justice and give it a new life. What a challenge!