As it is our custom in the needlework family, we specialize in creating beautiful clothes and breathtaking crochet 🧶 work. It is always a pleasure to be here, and I have just created another beauty.

Ana's is yet to know about this pleasant surprise that awaits her. I have just completed her birthday dress, which is far behind schedule like in previous years. Her birthday has been 5 days ago, and I couldn't make the dress as I suffered some health challenges.

I feel very better now, and the drowsiness and sleep have cleared off. Occasionally, I can also visit the farm now.

She is aware of the custom that I do make outfits for her yearly, and even when she expected one this year, it didn't show up, and I'm sure she must have felt sad. We live apart; hence, she has no idea that I was already making the dress but couldn't finish it.

On Monday, which was her day, I only gave her some cash to buy snacks with her friends. They celebrated her in class and even bought her some gifts of water bottles, colorful girls slippers, and more.
She must have been a well-behaved student and loved among her classmates to have gotten something from the teenage girls who contributed money among themselves to buy her gifts since this was the first of its kind among them. I'm happy that she keeps good company of friends too.

I wanted her dress to be ready before Sunday so that she can at least wear a new dress to church and take some photos too.

I'm happy to have received suggestions from my community friends here while I was confused about adding another color to the dress or not. Thanks for @abenad and my @youyowi. Your suggestion was brilliant and makes me happy to see how much needleworkers support each other here. There goes our design

I got some white bias strips and turned the necklines out since I wanted that to highlight the overlap.

Then it was zipper time and the constant fight of zipper fixing.

Next were the sleeves. I had earlier wanted to check the internet for sleeve inspiration on what will do this type of dress best, but that didn't happen, and my inner mind kept telling me to make something like this. I forgot the name of this shirt already. It's good that our creative minds open up continuously when we practice our skills and sew often; we get to know what to do rather than dwelling on other people's inspiration all the time. Sometimes it's difficult to know what will fit on what and which kind of sleeve will fit certain designs. Years of sewing and experience place such good ideas across our minds.

I made a terrible mistake while cutting the sleeves; I missed my calculations while cutting the sleeves. I thought that I had outgrown this sort of mistake after all these years of sewing, but anything can still lead to this, especially when we get distracted in our thoughts while sewing. There was no adjustment I can do to save the sleeves; they won't give me the fullness I needed; hence, I have to discard them totally and cut a new one.

Thank goodness I still have some of the fabrics. I then cut new and wider ones. That's the new pair of sleeve and the wrongly cut pair.

Then I added some elastic to the heming and fixed it to the dress.

Once more thing I had wished to do was to weave the edges of the lower part with white threads to highlight the steps more, but my zigzag machine broke down right when I needed it.

A part of the motor got broken. I even purchased super glue to see if it could help fix it, but no way. I have to get a new motor for this zigzag machine. I hate it when our machines break down right when we need them the most. It's a festive period with a lot to sew, and my machine has chosen this time of all the days in the year to break down.

Ana's dress is done, and she can rock it like this at least, which is more important for the moment. I will drop by at our family house by evening to see my baby sister and also deliver the surprise package.

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