It's Raining Cats...and Fish?

It seems like so many of Cordelia's dresses had been in rotation for about two years or so. Sure they kept getting shorter, but they still fit on her torso, so they stayed in the closet. Well Miss C must have gone through another growth spurt because it seems like all of a sudden none of her old dresses would button. 

Luckily, I love sewing dresses. This is my second Vintage Grace Flutter  Dress- I reviewed the pattern and showed off the pictures of the first one in my last post. 

The second dress went together even smoother than the first, and this is the final length of the size six dress- just for reference.

I only made two changes to the pattern when I made this Dress. First change was that I lined the flutter sleeve because the backside of this fabric was very underwhelming. Lining the piece was super simple, I cut two pieces of black fabric the same size of the flutter sleeve, then I placed them right sides together and sewed along the bottom edge. Then I trimmed the curve, flipped right side out, and sewed like normal. 

My second change was to add side pockets. I personally love having pockets in my skirts and dresses, and Cordelia has become accustomed to them as well- which I guess is a perk of having mommy made clothing. Jess from Craftiness is Not Optional has a great tutorial on how to add side pockets HERE.  Its a really simple addition to any project. 

Normally I avoid letting Cordelia pick fabric for things- that might make me sound terrible, but you can end up spending hours sewing fabric you hate when your five year old picks it out. However, I gave Cordelia full choice in the fabric store on fabric for a new dress and she picked this darling cat fabric. 

The best part was that her choice gave me the perfect opportunity to use these little fish bowl buttons my sister found at a yard sale last year. 

Thanks for stopping by- and do us a favor and cross your fingers for sunshine for us- well yesterday we were lucky enough to see the sun, but we had been hammered with rain for days and we are back to rain again! Rain is beautiful and wonderful but It sure is making for a cranky mamma and a cranky kid. 

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!