Unprecedented Organisation

Believe it or not, I actually finished both of the girls Easter dresses for this year in January. Given that I started Sophie's last year, you could say it's actually the longest it's taken me to make them something, but I'm still celebrating this as a success. Yes, the Easter dresses are done.

Sophie's was in the cupboard from last year, you may remember I did post about it, but when we got it out and she wore it, I found it was a strange length. Almost too long to be a shirt, but not long enough to be a dress. Here she is pretending that her hand is being eaten by the bunny pocket:

The solution was to add a ruffle to the bottom edge to give it length. Luckily, I had the prefect white material to match in my stash, some lovely embroidered stuff. Who knows where it came from.

I'm a little concerned about it's longevity, give that it's white and the girls have no care for their clothes, but nothing else matched half so well, so we are going with it.

Spotlight had a pretty decent Boxing Day sale at the end of last year, and I picked up this grey bunny print fabric there that I thought Rachel would love. It's perfect for Easter - bonus. I was a bit worried about all the grey though, so I picked up a matching pink for $2 that I figured I could use as a ruffle somewhere. I told Rachel my plan and boy did she have input suggestions about that ruffle.

I was informed that her favorite dresses were ones with ruffles running down the sides of the bodice over the sleeves because the ruffles felt like wings. "I want to fly like a butterfly Mum!" Who can argue with such a sentiment from a little bug lover like Rachel?

I took the Izzy Top pattern out again and did some more hacking to add places for the ruffles. I just used two strips of the pink fabric, at least a metre long, ruffled up and put into place. After they were pinned in, I asked Rachel what she thought. My initial thoughts were that it was too big and needed tapering, but Rachel loved it. The rather enormous ruffles were exactly what she wanted and I was not allowed to change any of it.

Again, what can you do but just run with it?

Ruffles in, and bodice sewn, I finished the dress in a day. It's so much easier when you don't have to deal with zippers or buttons and you've made the pattern several times before. Easter dresses done. I nearly had to hide them until Easter, because both girls were so keen on wearing them, but after some careful explanations, and the promise that they could start wearing them just before Easter, they were satisfied. Whew.

Too bad we are now experiencing social isolation and the girls probably won't get to wear these dresses to any Easter celebrations anyway. Maybe I should have let them wear them back in January when I finished them after all. Luckily, even though COVID-19 is a reality in our lives right now, the girls don't particularly care too much about Easter events, and still just want to wear their dresses. Small wins.

Stay safe in these turbulent times people of the internet. And wash your hands.