Dress for Baby June

A wonderful friend of mine, Meagan, had each of her daughters' photograph taken professionally when they were 6 months old. She had found similar styled dresses at a particular store, but when the third girl, June, came alone, that store had gone out of business and she hunted high and low for a similar typed dress, but to no avail.  She asked me to make it for her.  The catch was that each of the dresses had tuck pointing, but I had neither done tuck pointing before, nor did the pattern she got call for it, so there would need to be a modification of the pattern.  I would be lying to say that I not nervous.  I was glad to try it out, though and we had a back up plan if my tuck pointing failed.

 What I did was carefully sew equidistant basting stitches on a piece of fabric that was about 3 times the width (to allow for the gathering) of the piece you want tuckpointed.  Sew the basting stitches the same distance apart that the final stitches will be. The YouTube videos I watched told me something like 1/4" but I found that to be too close together because my final stitches were wider than theirs were.  You want the space between your stitches to be about 1/4."  Anyway, gather all the basting stitches.  This part is time consuming and you must take care to not break your threads.  Once it's gathered to the right length, sew your final stitches between your basting stitches.  When completely finished with that part, pull the basting stitches out. 

 Next, lay the pattern on it and cut it out.  I basted the edges so they would stay the right size and used that piece for the front bodice piece.  It worked!  Woo Hoo!