Striped Romper

A neighbor down the street gave me a large bag of fabric, and a couple of sewing patterns. Eesa had a blast laying out all the fabrics and matching them with her hairbows.  Silly girl. I've only made a couple of outfits for her from this fabric stash; the rest I still have. I'm sure someday I'll figure out what to do with the rest. The first thing I made a romper (August 2019), and I used one of the patterns that was gifted along with the fabric. The romper was pretty easy to make, I can't remember what brand the pattern was (it was a paper pattern and not a pdf). I didn't make too many alterations to it other that adding an inch to the waist and ruffle on the short's hem. Eesa wore this romper fairly often, until she grew out of it about a year later. 

 

Teal Tank Dress/boy's oxford shirt

Here's another cute dress that I just love so much! I made this in June of 2019. This is the Gwen dress from VFT, I used this same pattern to make some tops. I had fun making this dress. My (new-ish) machine has lots of fun embroidery stitches, and I enjoyed making use of one of them for this dress. My machine is pretty adept at sewing button holes too, so it wasn't too painful making all those button holes. The back is stretchy, so we don't even need to bother actually using the buttons, they're just for looks even though technically they are functional. What else to say about this dress? It has been used for a wedding reception and a portrait session, so I'd say this is a dress worth posting about! I used some cotton-poly fabric (I think its a quality broadcloth) I found at Goodwill, I also made little brother a shirt using the same fabric, so they could match at the reception and for their portraits.

 

A close-up of the buttons and embroidery trim

The pockets are so fun!

She's just too cute in this dress!

The dress in action at her aunt's wedding reception

She wore this dress for her portraits over a year later...you can see she grew a little!

And here's the boy's oxford shirt to match! That's the only picture I could find of him wearing it! It's your basic oxford shirt, pattern from Peek-A-Boo Pattern Shop.

Flower Girl/Baptism Dress

Here is a very special dress! In fact, it's double-special! This dress was Eesa's Baptism dress AND her flower girl dress for her aunt's wedding. I took a lot of time in planning this dress. I looked at soooo many flower girl and baptism dresses, but really the dress I wanted was mostly in my head, although I did find one picture that closely resembled what I was picturing in my mind, but unfortunately I can't find that photo. Anyway I bought the materials for the dress in April 2019 at Joann's. I had to ask for help for finding the white satin fabric. I made sure it was the best quality I could find, which luckily wasn't too much deal since I was only using it for the bodice. For the skirt, I found the perfect lace at Joann's that was finished at the bottom. Then I bought a bolt of tulle, which was 20 yards worth. The total cost added up to only $40! 

I used Violette Field Thread's Harlow pattern for the bodice, because I wanted the princess cut. I used the cap sleeve pattern option (yep, its a separate pattern). For the skirt, I would like to say I used the Penelope pattern, but I diverged from it so much that I basically used my own, though I did rely on some measurements from the pattern. The bodice came together nicely without a hitch. I used my ruffle foot attachment to sew the tulle onto some basic cotton-poly fabric that I already had in my stash. The ruffle foot made sewing the tulle so much faster and easier! I was actually surprised how quickly the skirt came together, especially with all those tulle layers! It was also nice that the lace didn't need to be hemmed. All that was left was to sew the skirt to the bodice! Oh, and sew buttons and make button holes. I used pearl shank buttons that I found at Walmart for the back enclosure (sorry I didn't take a picture of the back), which matched perfectly. 

When I had Eesa put the dress on for the very first time, she looked just like a princess! To add to that effect, I had bought a hoop skirt (years prior on Amazon), pearl earrings, and I made a delicate necklace featuring glass pearls and Swarovski crystals, a $3 white rosette hairclip I found at Walmart, and last but not least, a sparkly bridal sash from Amazon, which I had to trim.

Here are the pictures, her dress sure was a hit! She still wears her dress occasionally to church. I don't plan on selling the dress, I suppose I'll keep it as an heirloom forever.

The bodice. My anxiety was pretty high when handling it--I didn't want to snag it or maim it in anyway! 

You know you have a full skirt goin' on when it can "stand" on its own!

Trying it on in my messy sewing room

Red, Black and White Dress

May 2019. A neighbor generously gave my a big bag of fabric, including this cute red & black flower fabric. There was only just enough for a skirt, so I rummaged around in my fabric bin and found some red,  ribbed knit fabric for the bodice that I had previously purchased at Goodwill. So this dress probably costed me a dollar or two to make! I used the Tallulah knit pattern as a base for the bodice, but I modified it so much that I'm not going to bother tagging VFT in this dress. I somehow made the bodice a size bigger than I planned, but that's okay because Eesa has finally (a year and half later) grown into it. I'm glad I put that extra strip of black at the bottom for length! Eesa wore this dress fairly often, and at this point in my sewing life, I've realized that Eesa prefers knit clothing, something she can throw on over her head without help. So probably why she wore this dress as often as she did, versus the wrap dresses (previously posted here and here), for example (even though I personally think they are much cuter than this dress). Here she is modeling her new dress. We found a necklace that matched perfectly with this dress, it totally brings the outfit together!  

Pink & White Striped Wrap Dress

May 2019: Here is another wrap dress I made, and I love it! This is the Olive dress pattern from VFT. I started cutting this dress before I realized I didn't have enough fabric to finish. Whoops. Luckily I was able to order more fabric from Walmart.com. I like how the lines go different directions with each part of the dress, yet are still neat. For that added touch of cuteness (and length!) I added a pink band at the bottom of the skirt and sewed in some $1 lace I found at Walmart. I like that it breaks of the lines and adds some interest. The dress sewed up easy enough; I don't remember having any trouble with it. I love how this dress turned out. Unfortunately, Eesa didn't wear it near as much as I would have liked her to wear it. I don't even know if it fits anymore.

 

Gwen Tank Top Shirts

April 2019: Here is a sweet-heart top with straps, aka the "Gwen Top " from VFT. This pattern sews up fairly fast and I was able to use fat quarters, at least with this size (size 6/7). That makes the price of this shirt come to about $2. The front button (or snaps) open, but the back is elastic so the shirt can just be pulled over the head. I found some adorable flamingo fat quarters at Walmart and was happy I could use them for this project. I used scraps of pink for the trim and even some leftover black pom trim. I think it turned out super cute. Elisa wore it a handful of times before she outgrew it, and then I sold it.

Here is a bonus shirt I made using the leftover scraps from Eesa's Jacket I had made months before. You can see the elastic-back. This shirt looked nice with white shorts. I used buttons instead of snaps, and yes they are functional but no need with the elastic back so they're just mainly for looks.

Floral Flouce Wrap Dress (The Elianna)

April 2019--Here is Eesa's Spring/Easter 2019 Dress! Let me tell you, this was one epic dress. Hindsight--I probably wouldn't have bothered to purchase this pattern had I known how involved it was/is, not to mention the crazy amount of fabric involved in creating it. The pattern I used is VFT's Elianna Dress. The downloaded file of this pattern is HUGE. It's 171 pages! Even with the layered sizes, it kept printing, and printing, and printing...and then I had to assemble the printed pattern pieces together, and that took forever. And that's only just the pattern assembly itself. For a size 8, this pattern requires 11-12 yards of fabric! Yep, that's right. I had to go back and look at the pdf pattern file to double check. Fortunately, I didn't end up actually using that much fabric (VFT tends to overestimate fabric requirements). I saved fabric by not lining the bottom flounces, and for the flounces along the bodice, I used inexpensive white fabric that was most likely from a king-sized sheet I found at Goodwill. I can't recall the exact yardage I bought, but I do remember I bought $40 worth of this floral fabric from Walmart, so at $5/yard--I guess I used 8 yards for this dress. With the exception of one other dress--which is a very special dress, and I'll post about that later-- I've NEVER spent that much money to make a dress. Not even to buy a dress off the rack. As for the actual construction of the dress...I guess it came together okay. It's a wrap dress and I got confused along the way, so my dress actually wraps the opposite way then the pattern calls for, but I don't think that matters one bit. Fortunately, this dress turned out so gorgeous! Eesa wore it a handful of times, but not as much as I would have liked. At least, not enough to make all that work and money that I put into this dress worth it.
I decided since I already spent soooo much time printing and assembling the pattern, that I might as well make a dress for Eesa's cousin Aaliyah. I bought a twin-size sheet set and cut it up for fabric so the dress wasn't so pricey. I think the sheet set was only $10.  I couldn't find sheets with cute prints, so I chose a solid navy blue. The sheet set was (thin-ish) polyester, so I got a nice drape out of the 2nd Elianna. I don't have pictures of it, but I did get a video of Eesa trying it on, which is in a way even better that pictures!