Baptism Dresses

I have no real excuse for not keeping up on my blog lately, other than my camera died.  And then it died again.  And then it died again.  And then it died one more time and I think I’m ready to throw in the towel and move on.  But I don’t want to shell out a whole bunch of money right now with Disneyland, Christmas and braces for Djeryd just around the corner.  Dah!

Regardless, I can still blog without my camera.  And I managed to to get in enough pictures between camera-deaths to compose a decent amount of posts.  So first up, because I have been dying to post this one, is a dress and a skirt I made for two of my nieces.  Please forgive the bland photography.  I was seriously like a crazed maniac just trying to capture these to garments digitally before my camera died again.  The sun was setting and it was cloudy and I was forced to scramble up to the studio and use a flash.  I didn’t know if I could eek out even one shot of each item.  But enough about the camera.

When each of my nieces turn eight years old and get baptized I make a dress for them.  They get to pick out the pattern and the fabric and I construct it.  Erik and two of his girl cousins have birthdays within three months of each other, so I had two things to whip up this time.  One of my sweet nieces wanted a dress that she picked out from Girls’ World.  I added a little ruffle sleeve to make it feel like a dress and not a jumper.  I found a tutorial for the flower online after being completely inspired by my dear, sweet friend who made a dozen of these babies for me for a family photo shoot.  I wish I could tell you exactly where I found the tutorial, but there are a zillion out there – just google “singed flower tutorial” and take your pick.  I love how the dress turned out and cannot wait to make one for Annaliese (I am determined to finished her current skirt though, before I start something new).  I lined the entire dress in the lilac satin.  For some reason when she put the dress on that sash shot up to the ceiling.  I don’t know if it was an engineering problem on my part or if the bow just got tied a little too tight and the dress is a little too big.  No matter, she loved it.  Yippee!

My second item was this gorgeous fuchsia skirt.  This skirt took about three hours from start to finish.  You could probably do it faster, but I iron A LOT and I had my girls “helping” in the studio.  It is a Lizzy McGuire pattern through Simplicity.  Emma chose the fabric and wanted a top to go with it, but I somehow lost the pattern pieces for that one.  And I was in a time crunch so I did not pursue any other avenues (consequently, I offered to make her a dress instead, but she said no, just the skirt).  The fabric is a shimmery rayon blend that I LOVED!  It was a little tricky to work with, but not bad.  And the drape is just incredible.  Don’t you love how it hangs?  I lined this one with a golden buttery satin because the fabric was quite sheer with any kind of back-lighting (oh, my).  I wish I had the blouse pattern because I would have loved to include an offset handkerchief hem in the yellow on the skirt, and then made a yellow top with some fuchsia ruffles.  Can you see it?