How I made a Christening gown or Baptism dress from the mother’s First Holy Communion dress:
Thank goodness for Grandmas!
The Grandma in this story saved the mother’s First Holy Communion dress all these years and now the Grandson will wear the reworked dress for his Christening.
We kept the same basic style, plain bodice with narrow waistband and ruffled skirt but removed the lace and ruffled yoke! and puffy sleeves.
I reworked the bodice and made new sleeves with a simple bias trim and collar, classic and timeless for either gender should she have a baby girl in the future.
The back closure has three fabric covered buttons:
And we kept the original skirt portion, including the lace which I think makes it a little bit fancy:
The dress itself was not lined nor did I line the new version but I did make a new white cotton slip:
It’s perfectly adorable on it’s own as a dress (for a girl) with a simple one button back closure:
Here you can see the slip under the skirt portion, it completes the dress:
Here’s how I made the Christening gown from the First Communion dress:
1. Wash the dress.
2. Using a seam ripper take apart dress.
Undo bodice, sleeves and skirt:
Undo bodice, sleeves and skirt:
3. I used McCalls pattern M4865 size M, dress A, slip B:
Cut new bodice and sleeves using pattern.
4. I modified the sleeve pattern (it was quite puffy) for a more tailored sleeve.
Here you can see I used the old back bodice pieces to make the new sleeves:
5. The McCalls pattern doesn’t have a collar so I made a collar pattern from scrap muslin:
6. Then cut out the collar pieces, I had very limited left over fabric pieces to work with which is why the collar had to be pieced at the shoulder seams:
7. Make the 1/2″ fabric covered buttons using Dritz kit:
Ready for baby James.
How wonderful that you were able to rework the dress into a baptism gown! You've created a new heirloom piece for the family.
What a lot of work you put into this beautiful dress. It will be treasured for many generations, I am sure. Great Job! Tonya 🙂
This little dress is adorable
i would love for you to share it at our linky party over at live love laugh
hope to see you there. xx
http://live-love-laugh-interiordesign.blogspot.com.au/
Beautifully done, and so meaningful. I think you've just created an heirloom all over again.
That turned out beautiful, Jaime!