First Birthday dress

 This has been a highly enjoyable project. My friend bought some fabric for me, and asked me to make a birthday dress for her beautiful little girl. I may have hinted quite strongly that I would like to do this.

 

The pattern I used was a conglomeration of the romper Lollipop (Australian Smocking and Embroidery 72) and the dress Serious Fun (Australian Smocking and Embroidery 87). I should probably say that it was a simplification of the two patterns as really, the fabric and the smocking do the talking here. Basically this is a sleeveless square yoke dress with a contrast back button band and hem ruffle. The mini piping at neckline, armscyes and bodice, and the neckline embroidery are my own addition.

The smocking design is a modification of the smocking and embroidery from the Lollipop pattern.

My friend has a terrific eye for colour, but is not experienced in buying fabric. Unfortunately she was sold some rather off grain printed cotton, which required a lot of starch to line up nicely through the pleating tool. I think it turned out quite well despite this wrestling, and the recepient seemed quite comfortable on the day by all reports (Alas, I was in isolation and could not attend the party to view the dress in action, but daughter-the-second took some photographs for me) My daughter cunningly managed to gain the photographs before the consumption of cake and before the water play in the rain and puddles. As I reassured the baby's parents, smocking is very robust and a smocked cotton dress has no trouble going through the washing machine, even if you forget to turn it inside out.

 

Underneath the dress, there is a pair of ruffly bloomers, made from the white cotton also used for the dress ruffle, but with the ruffles made from the yellow polkadot print, edged with white binding. I modified the overall pattern that I had  used for her previously:  Burda Style 02/2016/141 to make these)  Naturally one should not photograph a young lady's underpinnings in situ, (well, I forgot to photograph them before they were provided to the birthday girl), but I assure you that they look very sweet, and could possibly turn into shorts in their next wearing, which one could photograph with impunity. I will keep an eye out for photo opportunities. Both the dress and the rompers were made for size 1, but as you can see, the dress has a little room for growth, which is an advantage for baby clothes. The romper elastic at the waist had to be shortened by about 5 cm to fit.

technical drawing from Burdastyle.com

I love sewing little girl's clothes.

Baby sewing: Burda Style Magazine 02-2016- 141,143,145 and 146

 It love making baby clothes, and the more ruffly and cutesy, the better.

To my great good fortune, friends of mine are expecting a baby in January. There is apparently a 90% chance that this baby is a girl, and today I am going to my friends' baby shower. I indulged myself.

I started with Burda Style 02-2016, which has a wide selection of patterns for new babies.

First up were these overall type rompers,02-2016-141 A . I adore the ruffles that you can see both front and back. This is an unusual to me constrution of a little pair of panties/nappy covers, with an attached full front making the  overall. I can see that this is practical for keeping the garment up at the waist, but frankly, it seems a little wasteful of material and construction time - why not just extend the front directly from the pants and rely on the elasticised back for fitting? Despite this quibble, I like the pattern and think that the rompers will be quite practical. 

As I used a poplin fabric, which does not have a lot of body, I made a half lining for the overall bib, extending to just below the front waistband.

Burda has you attach the straps with buttons to the back elastic waistband. I thought this would be problematic, elastic  being thick and stretchy and hard to hand-sew through, so instead copied something I'd seen in RTW baby clothes.

 This back loop is sewn to the body of the panties, and also attached just above the elastic, and the straps button to themselves. I put in several buttonholes, hoping that this adjustablility will increase the wearing life of the garment as  babies tend to grow length wise more rapidly that width wise.

The reversible bonnet 02-1026-146  was a very quick addition, and I have only changed it by using little pleats instead of gathers. This outfit is Burda size 62 cm, which is apparently for about a 3 month old baby. I thought that I would give this outfit with a purchased plain white short sleeved onsie to extend the life of the garment into the slightly cooler Autumn temperatures. I am not interested in sewing plain white knit onsies. There is a lack of frill and ornament and sewing pleasure in the construction of such admittedly useful garments.

My friends are from Sri Lanka, and I used some (remnant) fabric from a  hand woven sari that they had bought me for the ruffles and one side of the reversible bonnet . This sentimental nod to the baby's heritage appealed to me so much that I made the baby another outfit from another section of the same sari.

 

This little dress is number 02-2016-143,  scaled down to size 52 cm (Newborn, per Burda), and I've left off the sleeves because a January baby in the Antipodean Subtropics does not need sleeves - or clothes at all really :).  I've made a nappy cover from the romper pattern 141. I suspect that the baby will wear the nappy covers more often than she wears the dress.

The contrast, which I used for the turn back pocket lining, the turn back facing and for the bias binding for the armscyes, is from some scraps of a Liberty Tana lawn.

I couldn't stop when I saw that I could squeeze out another outfit from the rest of the Liberty remnant.

This little dress is number 02-2016-144, with added angel ruffles instead of a sleeve, and a superfluous embroidered pocket for my entertainment. I left off the Peter Pan collar, and instead used a contrasting bias binding to finish the neck line.

In my imagination, if the baby does something messy at either end and only manages to dirty one part of the outfit,  half of the other outfit can be swapped in. Capsule sewing for babies is my new hobby

On reflection, I think my enthusiasm let to excess sewing. I decided just to give my friend the 2 dress, 2 panties capsule set today. I will leave the overalls until the baby arrives.  I might do some boy-baby sewing as well, just in case.....

For completeness, here is the beautiful baby wearing her overalls, aged 2 months - they are a little big for her yet