Sew Ugly!

For my birthday (which is still a couple months away) my parents gave me a sewing machine!! I had a brief orientation on how to use it from my Mom, and ever since that time I have been itching to sew something. The problem is I don't really know how to sew. My idea was to sew the girls Halloween costumes. (I wanted them to all be nursery rhyme or storybook characters: Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks, Little Bo Peep, and Little Miss Muffit.) I figured that I could sew a cape and a couple aprons as a beginner, but OF COURSE my girls had other ideas for what they wanted to be. Emily (who I had pegged as Little Red Riding Hood) told me she wanted to be a Princess. I've heard of people making princess costumes, so I went on the internet and found a pattern. Unfortunately, the pattern was stupid (and I was stupid enough to not know the difference). We made a trip to Wal-Mart, got all the supplies, and after Emily got home from pre-school I set out to make a fabulous princess costume. From the tone of this post I think you can guess how it turned out. AWFUL!!! (see the picture below) But I am not going to give up. I may end up just purchasing Emily's princess costume from Party City, but I won't count that as a defeat. Maybe princess costumes aren't my thing... yet. Maybe I should start with something easier like, well, something easier. Any ideas?

Here is a picture of my valiant attempt. I had to take the picture with Summer wearing it because Emily refused to even put it on.