I can’t remember exactly what was running through my head when Abby was born and the nurse said: “it’s a girl”…but I’m pretty sure that a few seconds after learning that I now I had two daughters, I was already dreaming of matching outfits for the girls.
And the first such occasion was for a family photo shoot this past weekend!
I used McCall’s sewing patterns: LolaLou for McCall’s Patterns M6271 Children’s/Girls’ Top, Dress and Shorts for the dress and Laura Ashley Infants’ Dress and Romper Pattern #M4424 for the romper. I had purchased both of these at a recent Hancock Fabrics sale where they were selling patterns for $1 a piece. So when it was time to sew, I just looked into my pattern stash and found these two. They were both pretty easy to make.
What I have found since getting into sewing is that the actual prep work of sewing is far more laborious than the sewing part. With pattern sewing, I unpack the pattern paper, iron it flat, then cut out the individual pieces. Since the patterns were so cheap, I don’t think it’s worth it to trace the pattern so that I can use it for a larger size…I figure that if I want to make this particular pattern again in the future in a larger size, I will just wait for another $1 pattern sale. Then I lay out the pieces on the fabric and cut. After that, the sewing is almost a breeze…especially once the garment starts taking shape.
For Elle’s dress, I deviated from the pattern directions in that I just used two fabrics, because I loved the flower print I had so much, that I didn’t want to use a contrasting fabric for the bodice…I also didn’t want to have a front brand covering any part of the bodice. I just made the neck straps out of a contrasting chartreuse-like green. I made the shorter dress, but opted to not make the shorts, but instead made matching a underwear/diaper cover out of the flower print.
For Abby’s romper I followed the directions for rompers F and D, but didn’t use any of the embellishments of ruffles or bows.
Here’s a picture from the shoot…just a sneak peek that the photographer, Mary, sent over already…I can’t wait to see the rest!
I really haven’t done much sewing recently, but I have done some fabric organizing! I wrapped fabric on Comic Book Backing Boards using the method explained here. It was pretty easy and very addictive to see the mounds of fabric, becoming nice organized rectangles that I could prop up in my bookshelf. The little boxes have patterns stored in them and serve as book ends, er, fabric ends?
