A little originality

As you know, I like to design my little princess’ dresses.  I usually look around to get inspiration and then go to town by drafting a pattern that will hopefully fit.

Lately, I have had a really hard time finding anything inspirational.  I used to look on Ebay for the boutique sellers, because they seemed to have some pretty original stuff.  That was before I realized that most of them are using Farbenmix patterns.  So…lots of “unique” Farbenmix boutique dresses.  Still pretty, but not necessarily original after the 50th one you have seen.  Etsy is fun to look at, but there are a lot of similar items on there, too.  I’m speaking in design terms, of course, because a really neat fabric can make a plain outfit pretty special.  I’d prefer to have both an original design AND a pretty fabric.

This one is my own variation of a rather vintage pattern.  I saw a picture of an early 1900’s child dress that gave me the inspiration for this one.  I’ve had it on my mind since last summer.  I finally got it drafted and it turned out about as well as I would have wanted.  It fits her pretty good, and should fit her through this coming spring and summer.  It has a full circle skirt, a zipper in the back, pockets on the top and the top is fully lined with the seams enclosed.  The key to zippers is Wonder Tape.  Truly…buy some of that and you will be amazed at how easy it is to put in a zipper.

The first dress is for St. Patrick’s Day for our little Irish Princess.  I bought the celtic knot fabric last year on an after holiday sale and the light green is a heavy satin.

Less than stellar shot of her modelling it, but I take what I can get.  She promptly colored the green satin with orange marker.  Oh how I love washable markers! 

I love how this pink dress turned out.  She chose these fabrics from the stash, and I had a bunch of ribbon that matched the fabrics.  I used them as much as I could!  I also had those buttons that matched (pink with green polka dots).  They are purely decorative, but I love the little added touch they give to it.

Then here is a variation on it without pockets in the top, but with two pockets in the skirt.  She’s sleeping right now, or else I would show her the dress and hear her squeals of “Butterflies!”.  She does love her butterflies.

Here is a swimsuit I made a few weeks ago, too.  She apparently needed more…so she told me. 😉

I actually sewed quite a bit this weekend for a change.  Sewing her little dresses is so much fun for me.  I get to play with pretty fabrics and ribbons and buttons.

Next week I will have more to show, most of which was sewing for moi.  I also made a camera strap cover for my D300s, and took photos of the process.  Hopefully I can get a tutorial made for it this week.  I also finally fixed my neighbor’s daughter’s skating dress (note to self – I hate working with chiffon!) and made a mock up for a over-chair-folder-holder-thing for Kai’s teacher.  She thought it was perfect, so YAY! a project for me to work on.  She probably needs about 25 of them or so.  I’m may count that as her end of the year teacher gift…I think. 😉

I feel all productive…hope it holds!