Project: Little girls' dresses

I've been meaning to blog about this project for a while now and seeing as TDSH has relinquished his hold on the laptop this evening (thanks to getting the first draft of his thesis in to his advisor today. YEAH!) it seems like as good a time as any.

I found this great pattern for little girls' dresses last year when I made it as a gift for a little friend. It's dead easy and the dress is so cute. What I particularly like is that it can be worn as a tunic once your babe gets a bit too tall to wear it as a dress. Here's the one I did way back when:

A couple of months ago Abner and I took a trip with Auntie Michelle and cousin Maryn to see our friend Danielle and meet her little girl Francesca. I didn't want to show up empty handed to meet the new baby, so I decided to whip up a batch of these dresses for each the girls (who were all born within five weeks of each other). My intentions were good, but real life got in the way and I wasn't going to be able to finish in time. Thankfully my mom can sew like nobody's business and she saved the day.

I cannot tell you how cute it was to see the three of them in matching dresses. We basically spent the entire afternoon putting the girls, who we've dubbed the Faux Triplets, in a succession of matching outfits. Amid the gales of laughter we were able to take a few pictures of the cuteness. That's Francesca on the left, Maryn on the right and Abner in the middle.

My mom has often told me about the magic of a reversible dress and how handy it was when I was a baby. It seems she loved the fact that if I puked on one side, she could just flip it over and I was good to go. It sounds a bit gross to me, but that little story inspired me to modify my original pattern and turn it into a reversible dress.

Now as I said, the original pattern is dead easy, but the new reversible one is even easier! It's only two pieces of fabric. No more messing with annoying facing pieces and rolled hems! I managed to sew up two dresses in just a couple of hours with some beautiful Amy Butler fabric I had kicking around.

Chances are if you have a little girl and you invite me to her birthday party, you'll be getting one of these dresses. However, if you'd like me to make one at any other time, just let me know!