Scalloped Princess Dress: Ariel's Day Out

I'm so excited to show off B's latest dress!  I'm participating in Lydia's first blog tour at Little Kiwis Closet.  For this tour the contributors are all sewing up their version of the Scalloped Princess Dress.  I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's creations.  These are all super talented women and I'm so honored to be showcased among them.  Also check out the link at the end of the post for a fantastic giveaway opportunity!

This pattern is the perfect canvas to be creative and create any princess dress.  It has great options for bodice necklines and hemlines so it is easy to find the combination that you want.  The instructions are clear and the pieces sew together easily and beautifully.  The dress is a lovely fit for B.  I followed the sizing of the chest rather than the age.  (B usually wears size 4 but her chest measurement indicated that she should be in a size 3.)      

The main difficulty I had was my own fault.  I decided to get direction from my customer.  Bad idea.  My customer is fairly exacting and terms like "inspired by" don't go over well.  Mostly because she doesn't understand them or the point of having an "inspired by" dress.  Consequently, I had to figure out how to add long sleeves and my very first cuffs.  My initial thought was to draft sleeves but then I got too scared because the rest of the dress was too cute to ruin.  I ended up modifying sleeves from another pattern.  The bonus was that it came with instructions on how to attach cuffs.  

Check out my beautiful sleeves!

The other difficult part for me was that for the black part of the dress was a thick cotton.  It made it more difficult to top stitch the princess V bodice hem to the skirt.  If I had followed the recommendation to sew in a gathering stitch I would not have had to rip out my stitches so many times.  Good thing the fabric was so thick it could handle that kind of abuse.

If not for the issues I self generated, the dress would have been super quick to sew up. As it was it only took a few evenings. One of my favorite parts is the back of the dress. Look how sweet that scoop back is! It's so darling for the little princess in your life.

 As soon as I put this dress on her she would not take it off.  She insisted on wearing it to dinner and got marinara sauce on the cuff.  Such is the life of a princess dress!

Admit it, if you had a twirly dress, you would twirl too!

I can't leave the post without an adorable baby photo. So here's baby C with more food on her hands and face than in her belly.  I could just nibble on those sticky cheeks all day.

Where's my princess dress?

Be sure to check out Shelly's dress at Sew Shelly Sew and don't forget the giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Lessons in Personal Space

Personal space is a new keyword at my house these days.  B loves her sister but can't seem to get out of her face.  Luckily C doesn't seem to mind at the moment but I don't want to wait until B gets clawed in the face before she learns that lesson.

Claws at the ready.

Since C arrived the B and I have not had any time for just the 2 of us.  This is generally because she is either attached to my boob or screaming her head off because I'm not holding her.  Luckily I have a dear friend that is used to the attached kid problem and she is able to handle C a few hours at a time.

Why wouldn't you want to be with me all the time?

B and I decided to spend our precious 2.5 hours together at the ArtZone.  It's a place that has all sorts of art stations set up around a tiny facility and includes a little play area with dress up clothes.  I think that this was her favorite part.

I'm only a monster when you take your eyes off me.

 The only part that spoiled the mood was a nanny and her 2 year old.  The little girl wanted the tinker bell costume B put on and keep poking B in the chest.  B kept brushing the little girl's hand away.  The nanny decided to handle this by muttering that B was pushing the little girl.  Excuse me?  The nanny was being passive aggressive so I decided to simply ignore her.  The poking continued and finally B did actually gently push the girl away.  I decided not to admonish B for the pushing except to tell her that she needs to be gentle when someone is smaller than her.  I felt she was in the right to defend her personal space.  Perhaps I should have reminded her to use words but wouldn't you be ticked off if someone continuously poked you in the chest?

This is my personal space!

My favorite part of the morning was when we dropped C off at my friend's house.  B pointed at her and her 2 kids saying, "you and you and you.  You all watch Charlotte.  Make sure she doesn't cry."  I'm not sure she really understood what was going on because she started screaming, "STOP!  We FORGOT Charlotte!" as soon as I pulled out of the driveway.

There's no doubt about it, I have the best sister!

In sewing news, B's class had a picnic for the last day of school.  The notice her teacher sent instructed parents to bring a blanket to sit on.  For a year I have been telling myself, don't buy one because you can make one every time I saw blankets on sale.  Clearly this line of thought does not motivate me because we have been blanket-less for so long.  However, I couldn't have us go without a blanket to a school picnic.  I sewed all day and stayed up until 3am to finish this beauty.  I followed a tutorial by You and Mei.  Hers has a flap that keeps the blanket rolled up but I ran out of time.  Why do I procrastinate?  I could still theoretically still add it, but let's be honest here, that's never gonna happen.

So bright and sunny!

The Odette by Sunday Girl Designs

I recently had the great opportunity to test The Odette for Sunday Girl Designs.  When she posted the testing call I really really hoped to get chosen.  This is an adorable pattern.  It is not the quickest project I have tried because the blouse is as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside.

This was even before the blouse was completed!

The finished project was so worth it and something I would feel proud to gift to a friend.  Fortunately for B, she got to keep it.

I went to the fabric store looking for something white with little flowers on it, and left with a beautiful ballerina border fabric by Kokka.  At first I was intimidated by the border fabric but it turned out nicely.  The pleat is not as centered as I would like it to be, but live and learn I guess.

Most importantly, B loved it and came up with her own choreographed dance.  I present to you, the ballet Odette.

Don't forget the shy shrug at the end!

The shorts have an adorable cuff and I made all the bows detachable so I don't have to worry about them in the wash.  Sarah over at The Crazy Tailor made hers into a lovely dress that I want to copy down to the elk fabric.