A Princess Dress for Evie...

I will admit freely that when my friend and I decided to take our daughter to the Princess Festival, I knew that I would be making Evie a new dress. "Doesn't she already own a half a dozen princess dress-ups?"  Yes  "Well, you probably already had all the fabric and stuff."  Probably, not that it stopped me from shopping a sale at JoAnn's to get fabric for it...  "So at least it was cheaper than buying a ready-made dress."  Yes. But not by much.  Some of my other excuses were, that I didn't want to be looking for my Cinderella or Snow White in a crowd of Cinderella's and Snow White's... it can double as her Halloween costume this year and that puts me way ahead of the game come October... oh who am I kidding. I wanted to do it, it's what I do. And I stand by the fact that if you compared quality to cost it was much cheaper than buying one....

The goodies!  Teal and pink satin (costume satin on sale for 2.99/yd. I haven't completely gone off my rocker...)  The silver and blue netting was from their prom collection fabrics and marked down 60%, plus I got a remnant of 2/3 yd for another 75% off! Score!  Pink netting and jewels that I didn't end up using... this time around.

Part of my creative process, as this time around I used no pattern whatsoever!  I have to admit to being just so slightly pleased with myself for just sitting down with no idea of where I was heading and having it come out so right!  The upper sleeves did have to be cut out twice due to a drafting error on my part, but still...

TA DA!

I finished it the night before and was so excited to see how it would look on my little princess!

Practicing her curtsy, so sweet!

We decided that she was Cinderella from The Slipper and The Rose version, which just happens to be one of my favorite movies of all time!

P.S. to Me:  Chrissy- next time you do something like this PLEASE try to remember no matter how good it looks in the end costume satin is a PAIN in the REAR to work with!!!

Evie's Hat

I really love this hat pattern.  I have made 4 of them so far, one for each of my girls and 2 for baby gifts.  I love that with a few different details, it can be perfect either a boy or a girl.  And maybe most of all I love that so far all of them have only taken a single small skein of yarn.  (Even when I sized it up to fit my older daughter.)  So this adorable vision in pink cost me less than $4!

(Just ignore the messy face, about the only time I can get her to hold this still is lunchtime...)

I just clipped one of her flower hair bows to the band.  So she could wear it plain or with a flower or bow.  I am excited to see the many possibilities we come up with. I also love that she loves it, she calls it her "cute hat" and wore for the better part of the day.  

Sew Through the Decades Challenge: Week 2

This last week was 1910-1919.   I loved looking at all the pictures of the little girls in the dropped waist dresses and I liked the detail of the sash through bands of lace or fabric like on image i below.

So I designed a sun-dress for my three year old with those elements.  

The dress is white cotton eyelet. It sewn almost like a tube top, with elastic around the top and the skirt gathered slightly to the bottom.  Then I took 3" wide lace and tacked it in place at the top and bottom of the dress and stitched across it at the skirt seam to create a pocket for the ribbon sash to go through.

Each lace band runs up and over her shoulder to create a strap/sleeve at the top.  I also added a tiny cotton lace trim at the bottom of the skirt for a finishing detail.

With the hat and gloves from our dress up box I think she looks ready to head to the shore "In The Good Old Summertime".

I also entered the dress into this contest.  There are a lot of fun projects to look at over there.

Sunday dress for Evie

I finished this dress a week ago, but I had to wait to get these cute pictures of Evie in her new summer Sunday dress.  I have a weakness for full skirts and puffed sleeves on little girls.  Aunt Caite said she looks like she is ready to step into Alice's Wonderland.

I also have a weakness for how adorable it is when you catch a peek of the lace on her slip...

Baby Take a Bow!

This dress also cost me $5.  I got 2 yards of this plaid seersucker cotton on sale for $2/yd.  It would have only been a $4 dollar dress, but I only had a 7" or 22" white zipper on hand so I had to buy a 14" zipper.  I love how fresh and summery she looks, so we'll call this another success!

A summer challenge...

A few days ago while blog surfing I came across a blog where they are doing a challenge that could have been tailor made just for me!

Click here to check it out!

Many, many years ago (sometimes it feels like another lifetime...)  I was studying to become a costume designer.  Then I met my husband and got married and started having children, and what with one thing and another, that (going to school) part of my life has stayed on the back burner.  But as I started looking around at the links she has to all the costuming and historical clothing, I knew that I had to do this challenge.  

It was already more than halfway through the first week of the challenge, so that is why I opted to only do a small project this time.  

Week One: 1900-1909

Knickerbockers for Lila!

I finished them this morning and brought them upstairs to try them on her. I was really pleased with how they turned out.  But even better is I had her show her Daddy, who I hadn't told anything about this challenge or what I was doing them for, so as far as he knew it was just another piece of clothing I had made for one of the kids.  He chuckled and said, "Those make me think of old-fashioned golfing pants."  I think he was a little surprised at first at how happy that made me! 

I made these by customizing a shorts pattern to add the bands at the bottom so that they gather and poof at the knees.  The bands snap to open and close with the button sewn on for decoration.  I wanted to have the old-fashioned look of knickerbockers, but modernize them with the choice of fabric and make them easy to get on and off a squirmy 18 month old!  

New Church Dresses

A few weeks ago, while getting ready for church, I realized that both my girls have recently gone through major growth spurts.  You know it is a problem when there are over 20 dresses hanging in their closet and the only ones that fit are for the wrong season...

No problem-  time to whip up a few summer dresses.  

The first one completed is for Lila:

This dress cost me $5.  The gingham is a cotton/linen blend that I got on sale for $4 and then when I got home I found a remnant that I had bought a few months earlier for $1 that was the perfect shade of matching purple!  It was meant to be.

I already had the pattern and the buttons, which I bought on sale for a quarter.  Okay, it cost me $5.25.  Still not too bad...

Flowers and Bows

So a couple of weeks ago I hosted a bow-making day for the women in my ward. I cleaned the house, borrowed a table and chairs from my dad's and sent Brian and the kids out the door for 5 hours. And waited.... and waited.... and ate a snack... and waited... and finally realized that no one was coming.

But please don't think I am complaining, I had a clean house and 5 (count them! FIVE!) blessed hours of peace and quiet all to myself. And we are going to try doing it again on another day. But in the meantime, since I had everything out anyway, I've added to our rather large collection of hair candy...


I think the orange, pink, and green bows on the bottom left are my favorites... except for the fact that I really love the combo of black and white... and I have been wanting to make the daisy clips with the red and white gingham centers ever since I saw something similar at Gymboree last summer...

I'll admit I have a problem when I have to get a 2nd shoe organizer to contain them all.... maybe.