Day 24 - Leaver's Dress!

My baby girl has suddenly grown up without me noticing, and Tuesday night is her Year 6 Leavers' evening.  I may be a smidge emotional about it (far more than I expected actually), and am fully prepared to be a sobbing mess on Tuesday night.

Anyway, Leavers' Evening requires a dress, and the one she wanted to wear is too small.  Plus I kinda wanted to make my baby a dress?

Fabric was chosen, just enough was still in the shop, and all was bought. Thankfully that night when she came home to tell me that a theme had been chosen, the fabric was still fine for "Black and White" and "Formal".

I totally haven't been putting it off.  I've been busy.  And stuff.  I even made a blind.  Totally not procrastinating.  So, this weekend was pretty much deadline time.  Yesterday I sat and created a pattern, and over yesterday and today, I made her dress.

It turned out pretty damn fine in my eyes.  Possibly the most technically successful thing I've made.  The invisible zip is actually invisible, and the ribbon matched when the zip was added! <gasp>

I'm obviously looking at it thinking of tweaks I would make in the future, but that is standard for everything I make.

My little girl started school 7 years ago.  My little girl who struggled with clear speech, who couldn't handle them changing things without warning her, who had to relearn how to write in Yr 2, who experienced parents breaking up and finding new partners, who has broken two arms and had a hefty head injury in 6 months, who struggled to make true friendship bonds... is leaving primary school with results far above both average and what they predicted for her, with a knowledge of words that baffles me, with writing I can read, and with a best friend who she phones for hours every evening.  I'm so incredibly proud of everything she has achieved.

But it isn't just her really.  Over the past 7 years I have gone from assuming that her quirks would be picked up, to finding the strength to believe in myself and fight for her to get the support that she needs (and it is finally paying off), from not having touched a sewing machine in years to creating a dress from scratch and being confident that I could do it - no back up dresses in a wardrobe, barely looking at anyone in the school playground to having people I look forward to seeing daily, learning to raise three children without a partner, and then learning to let a partner close enough to actually help me.  

We've both come a hell of a long way.

P.S.  Strawb has her Leavers Presentation at nursery on Friday... be prepared for more emotion as my smallest one stops being "the baby"