A Surprise Dress For Kessie.

Hello Needle workers, how are you doing?

Happy Monday to you!!

It's always my goal to leave people happier than I found or met them which is why I always go out of my way to put a smile on people's faces.

Last weekend, Kessie my Friend and I decided to take a stroll to the new restaurant in town when we stumbled on the fine African print in a store close to the restaurant.

"Wow, Amie, look at that fabric, I love brown colour so much and I wish I had enough money I would have bought this fabric," Kessie told me as we walked into the restaurant.

"The fabric is fine, but we didn't plan to buy any so let's just go and enjoy our meals," I replied and then we just overlooked the fabric and walked into the restaurant.

In my heart of hearts, I knew I would surely come back to get that fabric as I've been looking for a way to gift my friend, she's been so sweet and has always been there for me whenever I needed her.

The next day, I went back to the store to purchase the fabric and then the work began.

Here is the raw fabric.

The struggle now was making a dress Kessie would love, I know her for her simplicity, she doesn't like busy outfits or padded bustiers, she likes dresses that are just straight to the point and easy to wear, so a particular style came to my mind.

I began to mark out the places I would be working with.

I decided to make her a princess dart dress, as it's easy and fine too, so here I marked out the shoulder, bust span, apex, and waist, and connected all the lines to the hip.

Here, I have cut out the princess dart down to the knee length placed it on my lining and cut out the lining as well.

I cut out the back bodice as well and did the same for the back lining.

Then I proceeded to the sleeve, I made a fitted sleeve, I marked the round sleeve and the sleeve length and cut it out.

These are the sleeves and I decided to make gathers at the knee length for my beautiful friend, I cut out a depth of 16 inches of three yards and made a gathers with it.

After turning the lining for the upper bodice, I joined shoulder to shoulder, and side to side and gave it a good shaping before attaching the gathers to the knee length.

What's a finished work without a sneak peek?

Here's one for you.

Now, let me show you what my surprise gift for my friend looks like.

Here it is...I took an up-close photo of what the sleeve and process dart looks like.

I didn't just want to present this gift to her like I regularly gifted her, so I invited her over and wrote down different small notes on one small piece of paper as to how she would find the gift.

I kept the gift somewhere in my room, hoping the clue on the paper led her to where the dress was.

Paper one: I have a surprise for you. You will look for paper two beside my shelf.

Paper two: Now you've seen me, look for paper three, that's where the details of your gift are.

Haha, it was a very fulfilling experience as she was so curious to know what the gift was, I watched her pay attention to all the details on the paper until she saw the note that said.."You are one step closer to your gift, what do you think is it?"

"Amie, I don't know, Shoes, bags?" She asked me and I was like I don't know ooh.

Then she saw the paper that said, "Look behind the bedside table you'll see a wrapped gift, open it and take whatever is inside."

And that's the moment she had been waiting for, as soon as she opened the gift this pretty dress was sitting inside and her excitement was priceless.

"This fabric Amie!!, Thank you, you even made me a dress with it, you are so sweet." Kessie gave me a very tight hug accompanied by a perk on my cheek.

And she couldn't wait to rock it.

I was her photographer yet again. The smile on her face was all I needed.

This is my beautiful friend with all smiles and we took a selfie together.

I felt happy that I could make her happy and that's what friends are for, sharing and caring.