I figured I’d give you all a break from book postings and talk about my other great love. Back in late November, Ellie asked if I would make her a dress to wear to our Advent Concert.  I’m crazy, and with two weeks’ notice, I said, “Sure honey!”  I knew I had that “rich red” solid so we pulled that out and then went to my Christmas fabric. Immediately, Ellie spotted three “sparkly” fat quarters (a gift from a friend) that she just needed me to turn into a dress.  Of course, the pattern doesn’t call for fat quarters and so I had to do a lot of fancy math and maneuvering, plus crazy piecing, to turn her dream into reality.  In the end, it turned out pretty fun and definitely Christmas-y!

She also picked out these crazy buttons, of which I sewed on the last one about 90 minutes before we had to leave for the concert.

Here’s the front and back skirts.  I had pictured them being reversed on the dress (i.e. with the larger pieces in the front) but oh well.  I wouldn’t have had to chop up the fabric into quite so many pieces except that I hate having seams that don’t look as if they serve a purpose.  Consequently, I decided to turn it into a striped skirt.

I love the cuffs on this pattern.

I even had to piece the collar/ties because I didn’t have a single piece big enough to cut the entire thing on the bias. (Like I said, lots of tricky maneuvering.)

love those berries!

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As soon as Christmas was over, I set to work on my other clothing project for December – Mark’s birthday present.  I made Ellie a dress for her third birthday and I wanted to sew Mark some clothes for his 3rd birthday too.  (Mark, by the way, now admits to being three so we’re over whatever craziness had a hold of him on his actual birthday!)

I don’t have any patterns for boys under size 5 but then happily remembered having seen an adorable shirt in Little One-Yard Wonders. Thankfully, I only checked the book out from the library because although the shirt turned out really cute, the pattern pieces were not sized correctly, so that they did not fit together when I was sewing them. I checked my traced pattern pieces against theirs many times and all cases, I had traced accurately but they weren’t scaled right. It was really frustrating but I was able to make it work (although it’s definitely not State Fair-worthy).

the best picture I could get of him wearing it 🙂

I used an old crib sheet from his cousins, the perfect print for my vehicle-obsessed son!

The shirt has “Western” details including flaps on the pocks and front and back yokes.  Mark chose the buttons himself!

I used a blue solid for the under-collar, to make sure the shirt was blue enough.

Fun with cutting on the bias!

And, after all that (blue buttons, blue under-collar, vehicles everywhere), he still refused to wear it for a whole week – wouldn’t even look at it in fact.  He has a bit of an aversion to shirts with buttons but I was hoping all that would win him over (as it has in the past).  This past Sunday, I cajoled him into putting it on and thankfully, he decided to wear it.  So at least he wore it once!

Silly kids with their clothes from Mama!