Can you believe it's time . . .

To start thinking about Easter outfits?

With Easter being early in April this year, I need to work on these garments now. Like Christmas, Easter can be a busy time with choir programs and other things.

Nothing really struck my daughter this year when she went looking at patterns. I couldn't interest her in a cute suit or anything else. So where do you turn if you don't like what's currently offered? Vintage, of course. I present to you the pattern she picked out from eBay's current vintage children's offerings:

She particularly liked the collar with the woven ribbon. Mom can do that, no problem. One problem solved. Next problem: fabric. She's picky about that, too, this year she wanted pink flowers. I went looking for vintage fabric, since we already had a vintage pattern. She chose this:


As you can see, the scale is rather large. The seller on eBay didn't put a ruler in the auction pictures, but it still is pretty. In order for this larger scale print not to look like Aunt Mildred's guest room curtains, I knew I'd have to pair this fabric with another to soften it a bit. I also knew there was no way I could exactly match any of the colors in it, let alone that beige background. We found a gorgeous milk chocolate brown that would have been stunning with tan ribbons, but the more I looked at it, the more I thought it was too mature, too sophisticated of a color combination for an 8 year old. So, this is what we came up with:

We found a pale aqua satin she really, really loved and picks up the blue in the little flowers. We're going to use that dark champagne colored ribbon with it. ("Dark champagne" sounds so much better than the actualy ribbon color, "oatmeal".) I'm going to underline the whole dress with the aqua and make the collar of aqua. I'm also going to make the underskirt about 4 or 5 inches longer and make the buttonholes in it to weave a wider ribbon through it like the collar.

I've done the muslin and will post the details about the fitting. With her thin body there's no way I'd skip the muslin. Besides, the muslin is made from another "stunning" piece of fabric.

Parting Shot: My new toy. It's a wood burning tool, although I'm going to use it on fabric, not wood. It's part of the plan for Waiting for Spring. I'll explain in due time.

Meanwhile, school starts again tomorrow, and I don't have the research papers graded I was supposed to grade. I was going to bring them home on the Friday before we left for winter break, but we had a snowstorm that day which cancelled school. Besides that, I have more week before the final yearbook deadline. Should be a fun work week . . .

I've also been doing some heavy duty percolating on Waiting For Spring - it's now on a deadline, so percolating has gone from automatic drip to double shot espresso. I'll post more details this week.