Out to Sea and Oliver + S Dresses

So I know Easter has come and gone, but it's never too late to share a cute little dress, right?

Last year I made handmade Easter dresses for my girls for Easter Sunday.... So I wanted to do the same this year, but instead of designing them myself, I opted to use a pattern. 

I am head over heels for this Out to Sea fabric by Sarah Jane... I knew that it would be perfect for Easter Dresses.

I used the Oliver + S Puppet Show Dress pattern for my youngest daughters dress. I made the size 2 but it was slightly large on her through the sleeve and pretty roomy in the skirt/dress... She is almost 3 but she's a tiny little thing. It will fit her for a while...

I used the My Favorite Ship in Breeze for the main part of the dress and then Raspberry Pirate Stripe for the accent fabric and I used up some of my vintage anchor buttons that I inherited from my grandma. 

I really loved this pattern. I love anything by Oliver + S so that is no surprise! It is out of print so it is only available in PDF form but it's just darling! I can't wait to make some of the puppet show shorts for my girls to wear this summer. 

I used the Oliver + S Fairytale Dress pattern for my oldest daughters dress. It is probably my favorite Oliver + S dress I have made yet ( I have made this dress, the Ice Cream Dress, and the Puppet Show Dress now). I have made the Fairytale Dress twice now (still need to blog about the first one I made). This time I made it without the collar and sash. It's fully lined with lightweight voile and has an invisible zipper in the back. It is such a great pattern! I will make it again and again I am sure...

I used the size 3 pattern for the bodice and the size 4 for the skirt of the dress. She is 4 years old but tall and skinny. 

One of my very favorite things about this dress is the tulip sleeves. Could they be any cuter? I think not! ;)

For this dress I used Sail Away in Bloom for the entire dress. This fabric is mostly white but has ships, water, and clouds along each of the selvage edges so I was able to place my pattern pieces to keep the ships along the bottom edge of the dress and keep the bodice and sleeves white. I did have to place my pattern pieces the opposite way the pattern called for on the skirt, but it turned out great still. I needed a bit more yardage so that I had enough of the white for the top of the dress too. 

I love the way they turned out and so did the littles... Job accomplished!

Simple Easter Dress + Tutorial

I have had plans to make my two girls Easter dresses for months, but just kept putting it off and putting it off and then when I had to go home for the funeral I thought that there was no way I was going to have time to make them. As I was walking through Joann's this week, I came upon the cutest fabric that was pre-ruffled on the bottom and smocked on the top and my plans of being able to finish dresses in time became a reality. 

I know that these dresses have been around the block a few times now, but this was my first time making them before so bare with me. 

This has to be the easiest thing to make in. the. world. And it looks like you spend to much time and effort to get the look.

The fabric comes like this. All you have to do is sew up the side to create the dress and add straps of some sort. It literally took less than a half hour to make. Umm... I think that is a record for a dress this cute! :)

So here is how I made the dress {for my skinny 3 year old}:

Keep in mind that you are going to have to take your own measurements to come with how much fabric you will need.

SUPPLIES:

-half yard of the pre-ruffle/smocked fabric

-whatever you want to use to make the straps; ribbon, extra fabric, etc.

-thread

To make my dress straps, I bought an extra half yard of the regular matching fabric because I have plans to make a skirt for my baby to match this dress {pictures and tutorial to come soon}.

Step 1: Zig zag or serge the raw edges of the sides of the fabric.

Step 2: Put the fabric right sides together and sew up the side to create the dress part. {forgot to take a picture of this step, but I think ya can figure it out ;)}

Step 3: Measure how wide and long you want the straps to be. For my little gal, I cut two strips of fabric that were 3 inches side and 10 inches long. {Keep in mind that you will be folding your straps in half so double your width.} Once your fabric is cut, take one of the fabric pieces and fold it in half (hotdog wise) right sides together and sew up the side of the raw edges creating a tube. Do this for the other piece of fabric too.

Step 4: Turn the tube right side out and and iron flat so that the seam is centered (instead of on the edge) so that you won't see it once the straps are flipped over.

Step 5: Try the dress on your daughter and pin the straps onto the dress so you can see where they need to be sewn. Carefully take the dress off her while the pins are still in.

Step 6: Sew the straps in place.

That's it!

Thrift Store Shirt Transformation

When I was pregnant with my first little girl, I was in the D. I. (a thrift store in Utah) and I found this little shirt.

 I thought it was darling, plus it still had the original tags on from the baby gap so it had never been worn... Since it was only $3,  I decided that I needed to have it! ;) So I took it home, washed it, and hung it in the closet among all the other precious outfits I had collected over the past 9 months. Once my little gal was here I realized that this shirt was never going to work for her. It was super short and really wide. It was 3-6 months size, but with my tiny gal it just never fit right- even when she was older. By the time the width would have worked- it was a belly shirt and the sleeves were an awkward length. Bummer! 

When I had my next little gal I thought maybe it might work for her, but since she is even tinier than my first- it definitely didn't work. 

One of my favorite ways to sew a dress is just to use an already existing shirt and just add a skirt to it to make a dress like I did with my polka dot dress and my mellow yellow dress . So I used the same idea to turn this into a dress too.... I cut the sleeves off and added elastic to make little puff sleeves. Some elastic around the waist to bring in the width a little, and added a fun bouncy skirt... I liked the look of the frayed finished edge of the skirt so I didn't hem it- I just left it unfinished. 

So now at 11 months- this little shirt finally works for my daughter. I am so excited to have her wear it to church this sunday!

Now I just need to make some matching bloomers to go underneath!

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