September 1, 2014

Glories of the Past: Vegetable theme dresses


Becky and I got fired up about learning how to quilt. Becky in fact finished a small baby quilt with the fabric she ordered, while I only succeeded in putting together a couple test blocks (so far!). My aim was to make some lovely hexagon quilts, and I ordered some vegetable themed quilting fabric from FatQuarterShop. This came with a panel of fabric with multiple prints on it, as if it were already a quilt. Cutting it up and sewing it back together again to make a quilt seemed silly, so in the spring of 2010 I decided to make it into some little dresses for Child 1 and Child 2.




The panel was not very big, so I made the bodices for these dresses from plain white cotton. For patterns on this project I just sketched them up full size on paper from the girls' measurements. They turned out a bit big, but that has made them wearable for longer.


To conserve the print panel fabric I also included an inverted pleat in both front and back, made with the same white cotton used for the bodices.



This was before I traded my serger and electric machine for human powered antiques. So the edges were finished with the serger, and the seams and buttonholes done with the Kenmore. Buttons are the silver metal ones I love from the bargain bin at Sew Low.


They turned out pretty cute.


My mom and her husband were visiting when I finished these, so the girls wore them on an outing we took downtown to the swan boats.




The vegetable dresses were not particular favorites for anyone, so they were not worn terribly often. But now 4 years later, Child 2 is still able to wear what originally was Child 1's dress, and has been choosing it every week or two this summer. I don't bother to iron it, so the inverted pleats are not folded as nicely as they could be.


Child 2 likes to wear it if we are planning on doing something in the garden, like on this day we picked our carrots:



Here she is trimming leaves off a sunflower plant I took down:


Child 3 is pretending he is "King Sunflower":


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