The wedding dress of the year... cut down to size (3T)

You are probably now shaking your head in wonder that any 3 year could be so over-indulged. I have to tell you, I can see where you're coming from but I can justify my insanity by telling you about her most-wanted list, every item on which has been refused by me/her daddy on the various grounds of:

cost (Lelli Kellys)
parental idleness (kitten(s), puppy, rabbits)
lack of space (4 horses)
lack of age (a rainbow car, ballet lessons, a DS)
health and safety (old yogurt, cilit bang (for the benefit of international readers: a hard-core cleaning agent), candles, turning the hot tap on and off)
all of the above (mobile phone)

Some of these things she will get when she has her own money. Others she will get when she has her own house, though I hope she's not holding her breath for the 4 horses. Now I'm not losing any sleep over the rainbow car decision but I do sometimes have pangs over refusing the Lelli Kellys - other little girls in her class have them and, heaven knows, I'd have stepped over my mother to get a pair when I was three. But £50 for a pair of shoes she can't even wear to school? No way!



So when she watched, with open mouth, the Royal Wedding last week and announced that Kate Middleton's dress is much nicer than any of the dresses that mummy had made for her, I decided to really indulge her. It's a dressing up dress, complete with stretch lace overlay, 3/4 sleees, small train and long veil. It isn't quite full-length - something that has not gone unnoticed by Laura! - so she can even scoot in it.

I say it's a dressing up dress because that's what it's meant to be. It's actually a 'going everywhere except nursery and mass' dress. We got a fair amount of attention in Ikea until I shoved her into the Smaland playzone so her brother could get the funny looks instead of me. I understand the nice childcare assistants had a lovely time playing with the veil...

And even I had to laugh when she accessorized it with raincoat and umbrella for going to the library. But we have to pick our battles in this life and you know what?, I bet the Duchess of Cambridge would love to do her shopping in her wedding dress, so I'm going to continue to let my 3-year old mini-Duchess do just that!

Notes for other over-indulgent mummies - I hacked the Farbenmix Olivia pattern for the dress body and sleeves. The train is just a pleated length of satin. The collar is a length of lace sewn onto the neckline. Or you could just buy one from my Etsy shop!

Useful sizing chart for children - downloadable

I know that buying garments for women is a bit of a minefield, what with vanity sizing and all, but sewing garments for children from commercial patterns is no less tricky. Especially if your child is not a 'standard' size - my daughter for example is all round dinky with very short legs (alas! her mummy's genes won through there!) while my son is of average height but super-skinny.

And if you're sewing garments to sell, it's even worse! I never know how to label mine and generally end up erring on the side of caution. I recently bought a Japanese pattern book and want to make a Communion dress from it for the shop but I wasn't sure what size to go for. So... I put together a sizing comparison chart. It might look like a procrastination task but it's actually been very useful. I shall be passing it onto my sewing pupils and thought that you might find it handy too. So here's the link - Sizing Comparison Chart. Now you may wonder why I haven't just included it in the blog post - the answer is I created it as a Word document and can't just paste it into the blog. So I resaved it as a PDF and posted it on Google Docs instead - that way everyone can download and print it, no matter what version of Word they may be running. And it also means that I can never lose it... yes, there really is no such thing as altruism!

Pattern-drafting & scrap-busting

Farbenmix afficionados will immediately recognise this t-shirt as the Antonia pattern, which I've had in my collection for ages but only got round to using last month when I realised Laura was in urgent need of long-sleeve tees. It is now officially my favourite t-shirt pattern and great for scrap-busting. The neckline runs a little wide which means that you don't need to use ribbing to bind it - always an advantage for UK fabric buyers!

But for the ultimate in scrap-busting, you can't beat dolls clothes! I have a very large box overflowing with tiny pieces of fabric that I just can't bear to bin. On the other hand, my sewing room only has so much space. So I put LiEr's drafting series to work again - it's gratifying to know that it works just as well for 16" dolls as 3 year old girls! At some stage, when I have a bit of free time (so not before 2011!) I'll post my drafted block as a printable pattern.

A few tweaks of the basic body block produced this little blouse...

and a very sweet velour dress that has already found a buyer, despite being made up of different dye lots.

But this is my favourite outfit - a teeny tiny Antonia top and embellished bootlegs. Too cute and another quick sale!

And I'm starting to think if a scrap of fabric is too small even to make a doll's sleeve then the chances are it shouldn't be in the scrap box. What about you? How small does a scrap have to be for you to consign it to the bin?

Two new ventures and the new collection

First new venture: I'm taking Les Petits Anglais out into the real world, aka Bentley Heath Country Market.

This is both exciting and scary. While it's great spending Friday mornings with people who don't expect me to discus the finer points of Dora the Explorer or follow me into the loo, the responsiblity of producing garments that people can feel and touch and criticise in front of me is weighing pretty heavy on me. Every time I see someone taking one of my garments off the rail I'm sure they're examining it for flaws and will denounce me to the market manager.
I have to keep reminding myself that I can sew, my stuff is nice and people have bought it before and seemed to like it.



And finally I remember that all this agonising is entirely moot since people rarely go to Country Markets to squander £28 on a dress for a child.

For what it's worth, the feedback I had today was entirely complimentary and I might actually convert compliments into sales soon.

Though I say it as shouldn't, I really do love this new collection and I'm only sorry I don't have the time to let Laura have one of everything. I'm letting her choose just one and she went straight for this 'mingoes dress'. Its a bamboo/cotton velour Olivia dress with Juule hood. The mingoes are of course flamingoes with sequin eyes.

All of the new collection is now in my Folksy shop and I only wish I could take better photographs! The denim garments are so cute in real life and look so terrible in these pictures.

The denim pinafore is especially sweet but can I get a good picture of that round yoke? Nope, not so much!

Even the peacock doesn't come out well. I think it's probably time I started looking out for a photography course.

Speaking of courses, this brings me onto my second venture: teaching two people how to sew. My first pupil is a complete novice but she has now made a skirt for her daughter and sewn a button on her husband's shirt. She's hugely enthusiastic (well, not so much about sewing on buttons, and who could blame her?) and is doing well. My other pupil has some sewing experience but her foot-wide perfectionist streak prevents her from setting a stitch in case she does it wrong. Our target is to get her to complete one of her 4 UFOs, and she is very nearly there. I'm proud of them both!

A tribute to knit dresses

I may have mentioned this before but boy, do I love a knit dress. Not for myself or the boys, of course, but for Laura. And who would blame me? They're an all-in-one outfit (great for husbands who occasionally have a problem understanding that cerise trousers may not go with a candy pink top), they can be folded up small to fit into a handbag (a boon during potty-training). They require hardly any ironing, which is always a plus but especially on holiday. They're cool in the summer, cosy in the winter, and they're very very cute. And you can make them - really quite quickly if you're unfussy about finishing seams - without an overlocker. This is quite important to me at the moment because mine is in the shop. Again. But enough of such misery - let's talk knits.

At some stage I'll post a picture of the second knit Harebell I did. In the meantime, this is a dress I put together using the Farbenmix Zoe pattern as a starting point. I added a hood (from Olivia) and attached a circle skirt to the dropped waist. I see a lot of these knit dropped waist dresses around, and I always think 'why skimp on the skirt?' So I didn't. And you should see this baby twirl!

Laura loves butterflies so I appliqued one to the front. It gives the dress something of an air of 'look at all the stuff I can do!' but I was making it for a not-quite 3 year old so I reckon the fashion police will let me off with a caution.






The skirt of this Ottobre dress is definitely on the skimpy side. I used an adult t-shirt to make it - it was £1.50 in Sainsbury's and I loved the fabric so I happily threw it in the trolley only to discover that it was so badly cut as to be unwearable. There was a fair amount of fabric which I thought would transform nicely into the Ottobre knit dress.

I was ambivalent about this pattern; it's another that I felt I ought to like but didn't quite. I was convinced to give it a go by the gorgeous versions created by Tiny from Tiny's Kitchen Table, but I'm not so in love with my own version to try making another. But it's a pattern crossed off the list and it was, until I introduced her to butterflies and circle skirts, Laura's favourite everyday dress.

Now this dress I am not remotely ambivalent about. I love it. The pattern started out life as a woven peasant top, then became a woven dress, and then I did some slashing & spreading and general hacking about, and it became this Gored Peasant Dress. If I put it in the shop I'll try and think of a better name for it! It's a little more sophisticated than my usual fare and I'm not sure if that's entirely down to the fabric. I'll have a better idea once the Patty Young knits arrive and I can try out all these patterns in those gorgeous fabrics. Until then, I have shelves of knits to clear and birthday outfits to make for my boy so I'm hoping that the overlocker comes home soon.