Last post, I wanted to talk about why I started making dresses, so in this one I thought I’d describe the process a little.

One dress takes a week to complete, of which five days are spent doing hand work; embroidery and smocking. Working exclusively for so many days, I develop a close relationship with the dress I’m working on. If, for example, I have stitched an animal, the dress has acquired a personality. I find myself curious to know what that animal is thinking; what she likes and dislikes. The rabbit on dress #390 is on a swing suspended from a tree in her garden. I wonder what she appears to be daydreaming about while engulfed in the colors and scents around her.

As I sew, these scenes play themselves out in my mind. There is no set amount of smocking, characters or objects that each dress must have. The dress is given what it needs to complete the thought in my mind, and is finished only when I am satisfied that that has been accomplished. That is why some dresses have more or less rows of smocking or characters than others. I don’t think about the next dress until I’m satisfied that the present one has everything I want it to have.

As a child looks at pictures in a book and lets them talk to her, my hope is that she can have as much fun imagining what might be happening in the scene on her dress as I have creating that scene, and imagining the little girl who will be wearing it. I will never make two identical dresses, that way ensuring for me continued challenge while staving off boredom, and giving you the knowledge that your child will have something that she will enjoy wearing; something uniquely hers!