According to my five year old daughter, who is sweet as can be and always honest, Penny the puppy went into her room, used a pair of scissors and cut the sleeve of her precious Mulan dress. The dog cut and cut until the dress was destroyed! That dog didn't even ask to use the scissors!
My poor little girl was crying her eyes out over the ruined dress. It's her favorite and the dog cut it up!
Well, that puppy sure is a troublemaker. But she insisted that the dog did it. "Penny is a cutter. She likes to cut things." Hmmm.
My big eyed little girl begged me to please please please fix it. Of course, dear, Mommy can fix it.
I suppose I should have let her worry about it and face her destroyed dress for a while. Maybe I should have told her it would be very difficult to fix and I might not be able to do it. But, I think she felt bad enough and she never acts out, so I went right to work on it.
Normally, she doesn't destroy anything. She doesn't misuse scissors. And she doesn't lie. This must be a pretty bad day for her. I think she's crying for attention and so I'm going to do what only Mommy can do, and fix her dress.
The puppy was underfoot as usual, so I turned to Penny and gave her a stern lecture on the proper use of scissors and the impact of destroying special things. I scolded her firmly. Then I congratulated her on her fine motor skills, especially since she lacks thumbs. I told my daughter to get the scissors off of her dresser and put them where Penny cannot get them any more. Then I put the puppy out in the yard for her time-out (and because it was probably puppy potty time by now).
While I picked apart the shoulder seam to remove the slashed sleeve, I had my daughter sit next to me and draw pictures of hearts for me. She drew and drew. I wondered if that would bring out the truth, but she was sticking to her story. The dog did it.
Once the sleeve was removed, I used it as a pattern piece to cut out a new sleeve. One nice thing about always buying a bit too much fabric for every project, is that I have an awesome supply of scraps, and I lucked out and had plenty of the same fabric for a new sleeve. Score!
I cut out a new sleeve, making sure to allow for a seam allowance on the edges. When I removed the old sleeve, I cut off the seam that went from wrist to armpit to flatten it out to use as a pattern. Rather than use the seam ripper on that line, I just trimmed it off with the scissors and remembered to give it a seam allowance when I cut the new one.
I serged around the shoulder seam and around the hem before serging down the inside seam of the sleeve. And then I straight stitched the top of the sleeve to the armhole of the dress. And there we have it: Perfectly repaired Mulan dress!
My little daughter is so happy to have her favorite princess costume in perfect condition again! I told her that I can only fix it once. There will be no next time. If the dog cuts her dress again, or anything else, then we'll have to throw it away. The dog gets no second chances. She nodded and said she understood. So I had her go show Penny that it was all fixed so the poor puppy could get over her guilt.
The repair really didn't take long. The most difficult part of it was keeping a straight face when my daughter was telling me how the dog used scissors and cut with them. She is totally sticking to her story. When Daddy came home, she repeated it for him and then proudly showed off her new sleeve.
