New Sewing Venture!

  I'm a beginner when it comes to sewing, right? If you've been following this blog for a little while, you'll have seen the boppy I made, which was a pretty big accomplishment for me and a good starting-off point for my future sewing exploits. I decided that starting small would help me build my skills gradually and keep me from getting too overwhelmed or frustrated. So for my next project, I decided to alter one of my maxi dresses to make it less hot during the summer. For those of you who live in Provo, I'm sure you've noticed how unusually hot it has been this year. The snow has almost completely melted off of Mt. Timpanogos, which usually takes all summer, but with the current heat wave has happened by mid-May! So it's understandable that I would want to have at least one shorter dress to wear around through the duration of this pregnancy, right?

 So this is the dress that I started with:

I put it on and marked the approximate place where I wanted it to hit on my shins. Then I pinned it in place,

cut off the excess,

ironed it,

and used my beautiful new sewing machine (which was gift from Jeff for Mother's Day) to hem it where I wanted it. I had seen on a sewing tutorial that you're supposed to hem it once, iron it over and hem it again. I didn't understand why I was supposed to do that, so I didn't. ....I now understand why. It turned out being okay without the extra hem, but next time I'm definitely going to add that nice little feature.
 
   So I wore my dress the rest of that day, which was helpful because it was brutally hot, but I didn't manage to snag a picture. It's much less of a possibility now, though, since it accidentally got put through the dryer and shrunk considerably. :(  So I may be doing this again with another dress! At least I know I can do it, and that I'll need to add the extra hem. :)