It Was The Night Before Christmas

I can't always make Cordelia happy, and mostly I have accepted this. This was a really hard semester of school for me and unfortunately for her as well. I had to spend a lot of time studying to keep up, which meant that I spent less time focusing on Cordelia and she spent much more time clinging to me with all her might. Because it was such a crazy semester I did my best to cut down my Christmas crafting, I still did a little bit, but compared to years before it was really minimal.  

One afternoon while I was working on one of the few projects I had,  Cordelia came up to my desk and said "Mommy, are you making my Christmas dress?" surprised I said "no sweetie, I actually wasn't going to make you a Christmas dress this year because there aren't many more days until Christmas" and Cordelia said "but mommy, I love love my Christmas dress, you always make me one, you have to make me one please"....so on Christmas Eve I turned to my trusty Bella Sunshine Designs Coffee Shop Lace Dress and made a Christmas dress, well and a matching doll dress- but I have no pictures of it! 

I know there is nothing "christmasy" about this dress, no winter scenes, no red and green- but if it's made to be worn on Christmas it totally counts in my book! 

My sister picked up this cat fabric (part of the Hello Petal collection, designed by Aneela Hoey for Moda) in two color waves because we can't resist a good cat print and she suggested this would be a good opportunity to use it for a dress for Cordelia. 

The dark pink cat fabric has a fun bright teal accent color that I picked up in the piping and the buttons- I love a good button back dress. 

The only change I made to the Coffee Shop Dress pattern was that I more than doubled the amount of fabric in the skirt to make it extra full and extra twirly! The dress went over really well with Cordelia, and it was sure worth the time it took to make it!