True learning to b me moment

My sweet flittering butterfly loves to design outfits. She loves to coordinate her clothes, and changes a dozen times a day to get just the right outfit. Two summers ago I promised to make her something. I took her to the fabric store and let her have free reign, first mistake!

Later on that summer she designed the outfit I was to create with it. I tried to recreate it last summer but with little success. I threw it in a drawer and never wanted to touch it again.Here are her different variations of it. Now she wants me to make a matching skirt HAHA!

The material is stretchy, almost swimsuit like material. I have never sewn with such material. I don't want to do it again, anytime soon! Maybe after I get a serger, maybe under the eye of a trained professional, and I suggest not trying new techniques out on material you are unfamiliar with.

I am happy to say I FINALLY kept my promise and completed her creation! I altered my originally pattern and went for something more simplistic this time and it worked out much nicer. I see all the flaws. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong in this project- threads breaking while I was gathering, material not being caught on the backside while I top stitched, cut limited material too short, running out of thread with only ten inches left to sew, material constantly getting caught in the feed dogs, and someone suggested using a zigzag stitch instead of a straight stitch, didn't work! the material was too flimsy)! But it was all worth it with her excitement over the finished product. She is going to wear it until the first day of school. :-/ Atleast I know she appreciates all the effort I put into it!

She is such a poser, didn't have to ask her to do anything. She does it all LOL

I used this site for a pattern. I made both sides the same length and the same width. I had to cut the arm cut outs a little deeper than on this tutorial and made the width of the top band a little bigger. My Flittering Butterfly wanted rounded edges on the ends of the ties, so I sewed them inside out and up the side about 8inches. I then turned them right side out and sewed the black band all round, encasing the flower material which I had already sewn to the underside of the black piece, thus fully encasing the flower material within the black band. (Hope that makes sense. No photos to demonstrate.)

I learned that with a little patience and a little advice from more seasoned sewers it is possible to create the impossible. "If at first you don't succeed, try try again."
Double fist pump! I took my Flittering Butterflies creation and made it her own!

Side note- I recently tried my hand at drawing a few designs. I started by recreating this top. THanks to my soldier boys cousin and her tips, my daughter and I are having so much fun creating all kinds of new outfits (that I will probably never sew but enjoy drawing). Here's my first sketch.