Navy and Gold

11.24.2015


If you were worried that C's holiday dress was going to be yet another Hanami, let me assure you that I did the unthinkable and actually tried a new pattern.  Crazy, I know.  Well, not that crazy, because it's another Straight Grain pattern - the Jaanu Dress - which I can now declare is as lovely as the Hanami.  When thinking about making a dress for C, I knew that I wanted it to coordinate with her sister's, but I also didn't want them to be too matchy-matchy.  After digging through my stash I settled on using some gorgeous navy blue silk-cotton fabric for the main fabric and then making some gold and cream piping out of scraps left over from O's dress.


Two things about this plan:

1) I had to go through a mourning process in using this fabric for the dress because I so wanted to use it on something for myself.

2) I was really worried that C would not be into such an "understated" dress.  I mean, she's the kid who wants gold and silver and pink and glitter on everything.   Would she absolutely refuse to wear a navy blue dress?


Well, I'm happy to report that that wasn't not the case, but mostly because I sewed some little gold buttons at the end of each pleat and I think that the added sparkle helped her fall in love with the dress.  It was touch and go there for a little while though.


As for the pattern, I cut out a size three based on the size recommendations and the fit appears to be right on.  The pattern comes with two dress versions and after much hemming and hawing I chose to make the Norah version because of those awesome pleats.  I'm excited to try the pattern in the future with fabric that has even more body to see just how big and beautiful those pleats can be.

Now If you'll allow me a moment of indulgence, here are the two little ones together in all their glory.  Let's pretend that they're this sweet to each other all the time.  Also, let's pretend that O doesn't make this face at us at least once a day.



Striking Gold

11.21.2015


Sewing has definitely taken a backseat lately to school work, family obligations, and basically just keeping my children alive and fed.  Despite the craziness around here though, I did manage to dust off my sewing machine (in the most literal sense) in order to sew up a dress for each girl for some family pictures that we had taken last weekend.


For O's dress I was definitely inspired by this simple quilting cotton that I bought over the summer during my Portland fabric-shopping extravaganza.  It's a cream and gold quilting cotton and as soon as I saw it, I knew that the girls would love it.  It turns out that I was right.  My only regret is not buying a tad bit more.  I was hoping to be able to make something for C out of it too, but because I cut out the bodice on the bias it used up more fabric than I had planned for.


And speaking of the bias-cut top, that was my other inspiration for the dress.  I really wanted to make a Hanami with a chevron on the front.  Yeah, yeah, I've made a million Hanami's before but I thought that this would be a great modification to the pattern.  Super simple and really cute.  I also played around with the stripes by making the back of the bodice vertical and the skirt horizontal.  It also eliminated any problems that I may have had trying to match up a chevron on the back while inserting a zipper.  I'm all about taking the path of least resistance.


O's a huge fan of her new dress and was made an even bigger fan when we went out to buy her some gold shoes to complete the outfit.  And I'm a big fan of the fact that I already have her holiday dress made.  Big high five for both of us!