Vintage May: Part Two

The past couple of days have been nuts. I have had this crazy, non stop manic energy- I keep going going going until I crash. It's exhausting, and I'm not sure how productive it actually is, but it's helping out my sewing/blogging a bit! SO, originally I had only planned on doing one Vintage May post, but when researching ideas (on Pinterest of course, you can check out my board here) I pinned tons of darling dresses and my sister encouraged me to recreate one! and since I work best under a deadline, I figured I would give it a shot. I adore a good peter pan collar, so I modeled the dress I made off of this one. 

The dress is made from all things I had on hand! I am trying to use up some of my stash because I am running out of room- and If I run out of room I don't think my hubby will let me keep going to the fabric store! The fabric is calico print cotton from Joanne, the white is also quilters cotton but I have no idea where it came from, and the pink rick rack was purchased not to long ago because I have a rick rack problem (vintage, new, it doesn't matter I can't have enough of it). The pink buttons are also from Joann's. 

A funny story to go with the dress. Our nap time is disappearing- and so is bed time, which isn't funny but the conversations we have when she is supposed to be sleeping are often funny, which keeps me from going crazy. Cordelia has always been a great sleeper, and it's spoiled us because I have no idea how to handle this nonsense. I give props to parents that have problems with sleeping children. Anyways, the other night I am cutting this dress out and picking trims out and Cordelia comes out of her room and starts talking to me about what I'm making. Then she says "mommy, I want to watch you make sombthin, I just sit here and watch". So I explain no you can't sweetie and take her back to her room. She comes back 10 minutes later as I'm picking trim, she examines what I'm doing and after discovering the stash of ball fringe insists that the dress MUST have yellow ball fringe. Instead I tell her that my next project will be a skirt with lots of ball fringe. I finally get her to bed and in the morning she is soooo disappointed that she didn't have a ball fringe skirt ready for her.  Then the next day when she sees this dress she was totally disappointed that it lacked ball fringe. Being three must be hard, so many disappointments. However, my next project is a ball fringe adorned skirt.  

We took these photos at Brookside Gardens, again because I hoped for a backdrop of roses (they have a great rose garden) but we are just slightly too early for all the roses to be out. We did see a bunny, and that makes for a successful outing in my opinion. 

The pocket made up for the lack of ball fringe I think- Cordelia loves anything with a pocket- because without a pocket where would she put her rocks and moss? I also made her pink head scarf, and when I put it on her she said "ooooh just like mommy wear".

At the end of the day I love dresses. I am always most proud of the dresses I make- they are my heart when it comes to sewing. They are also my personal favorite thing to wear. 

And one last photo with a slightly silly face. And a big thank you to my sister Shauna for editing these photos- you are the best.  

Vintage May

After thinking up a garment, picking out fabric, sewing it up, bribing the three year old to smile for photos, and then editing said photos, thinking up a name for a blog post is hard work! Actually, sometimes writing that blog post at all is pretty hard (hence the silence on the blog). Vintage May is a yearly sewing series thought up by the lovely ladies at Craftiness is Not Optional and Skirt as Top. I love seeing the beautiful creations by all the participants, and the readers creations too- which you can check out in the Vintage May flickr group! Really, I'm kinda a vintage enthusiast so this is an exciting month for me! 

For this outfit I decided to use one of my Mother's vintage patterns- I think she used look 1 when she made it for my brother back in the day, However, I picked look 4, and decided to make the whole thing a little unconventional by using floral instead of a traditional sailor look. Overall the romper was fun to make- even if the instructions at times were a little vague. 

The floral cotton was ordered from fabric.com to make a dress for me, but once I saw it in person I decided the colors wouldn't look terrific with my skin tone- and I really am not big on wearing white. Lucky for me, Miss C doesn't really have the same complication and she hasn't met a color that didn't look good on her. It was nice to do a project using only materials I had on hand- including the red rick rack which is vintage (handed down by my grandmother). 

For our photos we went to the Franciscan Monastery- the gardens are beautiful and during the day it's very peaceful. I was hoping that all of the roses would be in bloom, but we will have to go back in a week or two because only a few bushes were ready. 

The hat is one I found around the house- it actually has a black band on it, but I added the red stripe so it would match her "look". She actually did a pretty good job keeping it on which surprised me!

It was fun how Cordelia had to stop at every patch of flowers to smell them, now she is very runny nosed even though I gave her allergy medicine- man spring is tough, but thank goodness we have finally said goodbye to all the snow!