Allison turned 8 and was baptized recently. I used the Oliver + S Garden Party pattern to make her dress. Since the front is already gathered, I wanted to try smocking on the front. I didn’t have a lot of time, or a pleater, so I used honeycomb smocking. I made a size 8 and ended up adding ~10″ to the width of the front panel when I cut it out (I moved the pattern ~5″ from the fold). To do the smocking, I first downloaded some 3/4″ graph paper and used that to transfer the dots using a water soluble marker. Then, following this tutorial, I smocked the front with 3 strands of white embroidery floss. BTW, I loved this video. Her voice is so soothing and I felt like I was sitting in her living room with her teaching me how to smock 🙂 The rest of the dress was really easy to sew up. The only other difficult part was figuring out where to place the front waistband since I didn’t do more than one line of basting there. It came out a little wonky but you can’t tell when she is wearing it. Overall, a very nice pattern and I love the simplicity and details of the design.

When I found a red, white and blue plaid seersucker at JoAnn’s a while back, I knew I wanted to make the girls’ dresses for the 4th of July. As usual, I procrastinated actually working on them and finished them up around 7pm that night. I also made Ian a pair of shorts from the Oliver + S Sketchbook pattern that he wore on Sunday. The dresses are Fiddlehead’s Beach Party Top extended into a dress. I added almost 4 inches to the length of the pattern, in addition to the ruffle, and it could have been a little longer on Allison. I’m trying to take advantage of the fact that Allison still wants to dress match-matchy with her sister 🙂

Since I made such fancy dresses for the girls last year, I decided to go simple this year. And last minute, as usual. Saturday I decided to make them Oliver + S Popover Sundresses. I had a purple seersucker for Marissa and a pink gingham for Allison. Ian’s matching bowtie didn’t happen in time for Easter but I have a new pattern to try out and will make him a few for spring. 

Sadly, this is the best picture I got of them on the way into church on Sunday. Oh well.

I made little, felt bunny finger puppets for the Easter baskets using this tutorial. I only started these darn things last year and finished them up the night before Easter. I had stitched them instead of using the machine. The kids weren’t super impressed but they really were more for me, anyways 🙂

I never did post the pictures of the dresses I made for Easter last year. I loved how they turned out! I’m still debating what to do for this year. I’d better decide soon: Easter is coming fast this year.

For Halloween, I made:

So, it’s been awhile 🙂 As usual, I’ve gone more than a month without blogging. I’ve been busy- I made the girls’ Easter dresses as well as a bow tie for Ian. I also messed up the rotary hook on my machine and had to wait almost a week for the replacement part to arrive. And I officially hate making clothes for me. I scrapped the dress I was making for me. Usually with a commercial pattern, I go down at least one, maybe two sizes from what the measurements say. This time, I did that and made a muslin of the bodice, nope, didn’t fit. The next size up, still no. So I just went with the size the measurements indicated. As I expected, the waist fit but it was huge in the bust and under the arms. I just don’t get it. To top it off, the waist pieces didn’t even fit together the way they should have. I should have just saved the money and bought a dress from one of those places like Shabby Apple. Oh well.