A Christmas Dress

One thing that was on my Absolutely Must Do Before Christmas List was to make my little girl a dress. I've been wanting to make her one for a while now and Christmas seemed like the perfect excuse. I've never made a dress before, although I've sewn quite a few simpler articles of clothing. I found a Butterick pattern for a cute party dress that didn't look too hard and after going Christmas shopping made a pit stop at Fabricland. I picked out some deep red satin and some really pretty embroidered organza. I couldn't wait to get working on it!

The pattern itself was quite simple and I was making the plainest dress. I sewed up the skirt first and then started on the bodice. Everything was going well, until I realized I was going to have to gather the sleeves. I'm not sure why that didn't occur to me sooner! (Not that it mattered - I still would have bought the pattern!) Gathering is not my favourite thing to do, but my mom told me if I hand basted the sleeve the gathering would go a lot smoother. And it did, but as I was gathering 5 miles of sleeve into 3 inches I couldn't help but think if Marilla had told Anne of Green Gables to make her own dress with puffed sleeves, if she wanted one so badly, Anne probably wouldn't have mentioned it again. I did, eventually, get it all gathered and I did get both sleeves sewn in. (Twice!) And if I thought gathering the sleeves were a pain, the skirt was worse!

I didn't quite get the dress done before it was time to leave for my parent's farm, which is where we were going for Christmas. I just had to hand stitch the lining of the bodice down and attach the ribbon - which I forgot to bring with me!!!

Regardless, the dress was still so cute and she looked like such a little princess.

My mom found an old flower girl dress and took the bow off of it for me to use.

I made a size 3 so it is just a little bit too big for her. It should fit her for a little while at least, which was the plan! Now that I've made one dress successfully I'm sure it won't be hard to find a reason to make another! Like my brother's wedding next fall!

Pretty In Pink

My little girl is growing right out of her sleepers. She only has a few pairs of pajamas that don't have feet in them, and even those ones are getting a little small. I have a couple of pajama patterns and some flannel, so I figured it would be fun to make some for her. I had a week off and kids and I went to visit my parent's. I was planning on bringing the flannel and a pattern to make my daughter some pajamas while I was there. Of course, I forgot it.

So I was telling my mom how I was going to do this and she suggested we go rummage through the shed to find the pattern I had used to make pajamas for my sister when she was little. Almost everything is in the shed, flannel included, the trick is finding the right box!

We were lucky enough to find a piece of flannel just big enough and the pattern too! I cut them out one evening and sewed them up the next afternoon and then dug through the button box to find 4 matching buttons.

My mom even had a tag for me to use!

She tried them out when we went camping the next weekend. They fit her pretty good, with room to grow!

My mom sent me home with a few more old patterns for nightgowns that I really want to make, they are just so adorable! That will be a fall project, the summer is too busy already!