A Very Special Dress for a Very Special First Birthday

I love that Cordelia has friends, she is however very short on girl friends. Most of her friends are boys- which is totally ok, but I am very grateful for Baby Echo because she gives me yet another excuse to make more cute little dresses! Baby Echo (we started calling her baby because it helped Cordelia part with toys and clothing we would hand down to her- and it stuck, so now Miss C only calls her "Baby Echo") just turned one, and this is the dress I made her for her birthday.

One of the things I struggle with when dressing my kid, is that so much of the little girl clothing out there is light pink- or pastel, which is hard to wash stains out of and not really to my personal taste. I know this is a similar frustration for Echo's mom and from the start I knew I wanted Echo's dress to be a darker color. This deep red fabric jumped out at me in the Joann's and pretty much demanded to be used for this project. I couldn't help adding the little pink piping for contrast- and I love the little sparkle the etched buttons add.

I wanted the dress to remain in Echo's closet for as long as possible, so the back has a wide band of elastic in it- with the tie to help cinch it tight and the straps button at three different lengths. I also figured keeping it sleeveless would mean that it could be worn over a long sleeve shirt during the colder months, and by itself during the scorching hot summers- this mentality might explain why I have very little clothing I think of as seasonal!