Dressing Up

Have finally made the girls more dress up dresses. I love it. Even though gathering is pretty much the bane of any dress sewing, making fun costumes for the girls to put on is possibly the most therapeutic sewing there is. It's a dress up, so it doesn't have to be perfect, and it's pretty, and I know they will love it. Winning.

These ones are pretty stunning, if I do say so myself. I made them exactly the same way that I made the first Cinderella Dress for Sophie nearly a year ago now. They look a bit the same because of that fact, but I feel they are different enough. No need to get too fussy when it's a dress up for a three year old right?

I'm rather lucky with sewing, because most of the material for theses dresses was just given to me. I did pay 50 cents a metre for the yellow stary tulle (of which I used two metres so a grand total of $1), but that was it. The rest of the yellow material was a gift from a lady at church who I know through prayer.

The gorgeous blue is from my friend Ruth who's mum is a dress maker. I think it's from her sister's formal dress (which her mum made). It's simply beautiful fabric.

It was much harder to take good photos of the girls this time, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the best camera we have in the house now turns out to be my phone. Ugh - phone photos right? Secondly, the girls just wanted to play together, rather than pose for photos. Thirdly, there is loads more in our backyard now. Swing sets, sandpit, music wall, play wall, and shop front. Not to mention the ghastly plastic monstrosities I've acquired in the name of family day care. So very hard to get a decent background. Oh well.

Both girls loved running around in them (though I'm not sure why they needed their fairy wings on). Rachel spun and spun until she couldn't stand up and fell over. It was rather amusing.

I hand stitched up the top layer of sheer yellow on her dress in parts so you can see the stars on the underneath layers better. The white underneath was already pre-gathered by someone who possess an actual gathering foot for their sewing machine. I dream one day I'll have such a magical tool, but until then, I'll just continue to gather the old fashioned way. Badly that is.

During the week, the girls wanted to wear their dresses and Hugo was not to be left out. He was lucky enough to score the pink dress. Loved every minute of it, the cheeky monkey.

Running Out of Time

I don't even know where May has gone, but it's nearly over. Reality hits me every time. The to do list is still long, and even if I had a day to finish it all, there'd still be stuff to do the next day. I often wonder who wins. More often than not, I feel like everyone loses.

I mean, if I did take a day to do the "things-that-must-be-done" on the to do list, sure, that'd be great, but I'd be missing out on time with Steve and the girls. So then, I've got to do it in the evenings right? Only then, I'm missing out on Paula and Steve time. Maybe I can do it during the day? But then I must be neglecting the kids in some way shape or form. Sigh.

And the first thing to go when my life gets busy and crowded is my time with God.

See what I mean about everyone losing?

Not sure there is a point to this, and I certainly don't have an answer, but it's out there now. Life is busy and I don't have the answers.

What I do have though, is pictures of fun lunches. Made these for the girls morning tea at playgroup on Tuesday.

Yum right?

Superhero Fairy

Our nephew Harrison was three last weekend, and for his birthday, he had, like many other little boys out there, a superhero party. The invites had Avengers from Captain America to Iron Man and Thor, the cake had Spider Man and Batman. So many superheroes. Of course, the kids going to this party were all going to be sporting their superhero-of-choice costume. So naturally, our girls wanted to wear costumes too.

Trouble is that our girls really have no idea about superheroes at all. Mostly, they are just too young for us to show them anything that is superhero related, but they are also not really interested in them yet either. Steve and I did a big brainstorm of good female superheroes that we could suggest to them for the party. There is a sadly short list, but we finally settled on Sif (from Thor) for Sophie and April O'Neil (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) for Rachel (arguably not really super, but good none the less).

Then I presented the girls the ideas and hit a snag. Sophie was not keen on Sif. No matter how I phrased it or how many cool photos I showed her, she was not having a bar of it. Back to the drawing board. I googled female superheroes and showed Sophie the photos, thinking she might like some generic Wonder Woman or Super Girl costume. No. Not a bit.

Finally, I asked if she'd like to be a fairy. Yes. Yes she would. Fairies are not really superheroes, I think, but at least they help people right? So Tinkerbell it is.

Rachel's costume was easy (partially why we chose it). Yellow shirt, denim shorts and boots. All of which I knew were already currently in her wardrobe. (I did take photos, but none of them were very good. Sorry Rachel for not having photos of you. I'm sure you will wear all the elements of your costume again though, and maybe I'll take some good photos then.) Sophie on the other hand now needed a green Tinkerbell costume, the night before the party. Sigh.

Luckily my love of sewing and hoarding any hand me down fabric comes in handy. I had a bit of a green table cloth from a friend's wedding that would serve as the base of the skirt. Some shiny see through green from I don't know where for the next layer and lastly a scrap of some cool embroidered blue-green stuff from my (hold your breath!) formal dress (that my mum made).

Make these into a gathered skirt that I can just tie around her waist and put it on a green top that I accidentally washed/tried to soak incorrectly last year rendering it unwearable but that I kept because the material was still beautiful and hello Tinkerbell.

I'm not sure why my sewing stories need these epic lead-ins, or how it always seems to happen that I have them, but oh well. This costume is so far from accurate it's not funny. The greens are wrong, the style of dress is wrong, the fit is wrong. But did my little girl love it? Yes. Did it take me an hour and a half one night to knock it together. Yes.

Was she too excited (and also slightly high on a party food overdose) to stand still for a photo? Yes.