More Birthday Girl Sewing

birthday sundress

birthday sundress One of the sweet little girls I care for had a birthday a few weeks (ok, a month) ago.  That means more girly sewing for me.

For this one I made a skirt, just the standard 44-45" fabric widths of a few fabrics, sewn into rows with a bit of ribbon and ric-rac thrown in for fun, and then a layer of the striped fabric underneath, and gathered at the top.  Basically, if that last sentence is clear as mud: two layers of fabrics, the bottom one longer than the top, together, and gathered with an elastic waistband at the top.  I added a shirred top of a coordinating Amy Butler fabric with tie straps.  Cute, right?  What ... wait ... don't see that in the picture?

I tried it on the birthday girl and the top was wonderful, simple, girly, perfect for Florida.  The skirt came across as very heavy, having it layered made just too much fabric for such a young girl.  If she were a few years older the skirt would have been great, but I didn't want her to have to wait so long to wear it.

birthday sundress detailI cut the elastic waistband off the skirt and added the top skirt (with all the rows, ribbon, and ric-rac) to the hem of the shirt.  Much, much better.  I tried it on her and it was fine, but length-wise it wouldn't fit for more than one season (plenty of room to grow width-wise).  So I added about 1/2 of the striped bottom layer of the skirt to the bottom of the dress, but attached it above the solid green fabric, so it kind of looks like un underskirt but without the extra bulk and weight.  The dress is now long enough to last a few years, and could even then be used as a top when she's elementary school age.  For cooler weather she could easily wear a top and/or tights underneath.

She loves it, I'm happy with it, and I got my little fix of girly sewing.  :)

(please forgive the photos ... I have no idea what is going on with my camera but it's not my best friend today! For some reason all the images are small and poor quality.  The battery just died so I'm not yet sure if it's Picasa or the camera causing the problems.)

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2 Comment

  1. That is lovely and lovely of you to make it for her ,handmade items are much more special ,I also make quilts for my friends children and grandchildren ,and I love doing it,happy sewing to you.

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  2. I love the stripiness, and the owls. :-)

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