Pink Eyelet Dress And 4th Birthday

  The whole time I was sewing the pink eyelet outfit for my baby niece, Booper was standing by admiring it. So for her birthday yesterday, I made her a matching one!

  There are a couple small differences, and one is the skirt... I made it as full as I could eke out of the remaining fabric in one piece, but I would have liked it to have more gathers.

  I tucked in a simple hair-bow as well, using a scrap of eyelet, some tiny pink satin ribbon and pink ric-rac, and some white satin ribbon, all tied, glued, and sewn together and glued atop a clip.

  Both were well-received. =)

  It turned out longer than I'd intended, which is probably due to a measuring error, but I still can't pinpoint where I messed up.

  I used the sloper I created in preparation for sewing her flower-girl dress last year, sewed up a couple of quickie muslins (removing the darts in the back in favor of sloped side seams), and ended up with something that fits quite well, especially considering how much this girl has grown since last year!

  The hardest part of this dress, besides hand-sewing the waist seam of the too-sturdy lining,

  was trying to match up all the seams, ribbons, and top-stitching right.

  I love the result though! And so does Booper. =)

  I don't think I mentioned before that this fabric is from Wal-mart. It's really flimsy, but once it's underlined it is plenty thick enough... as long as it doesn't get caught on anything! The only other pink eyelet I could find locally was almost $20 a yard and had a circular pattern instead of a floral one, so I didn't want that one.

  I was running low on white fabrics too... I had to use three different types on the inside of this! For the skirt and waistband, I used leftover backing from an old duvet, the same fabric I used for my triple-ruffle skirt.

For the bodice, I used scraps left from the skirt portion of the baby eyelet dress, a thick cotton. And for the underlining, the very last of my white muslin, which I seem to use a lot more than I'd expected to.

  I didn't think to pre-shrink the ribbon at the waist, because I had no problems with it in the baby version, but when I pressed the waistband on this dress the ribbon shrank a little and made the waistband bubble a little. It's not super-noticeable, but I do wish I had thought of that.

  I also made a cake for my darling daughter, who is getting so old.  I used a boxed mix with homemade frosting, and frosted it with simple rosettes.

  I first saw this technique on girl. Inspired. and I think it came out beautifully. It was really simple and quick to do (a little less than 30 minutes total frosting time, including the crumb coat), in spite of the fact that I forgot to mark my circles first and my frosting was just a tiny bit too thin. My husband was even impressed. =)

  I also gave Booper the one gift that she'd been hoping to get for months, the one that makes absolutely no sense in parched Arizona: an umbrella.

  This is a store-bought umbrella which turned out to be unfortunately flimsly (ALL of the ribs are broken, already) and dangerous (painful scratch on this child's eyelid) but which she totally loved.

  And that is how we celebrated our funny, talkative, curious, sweet, energetic little girl for her 4th birthday. She also had a lovely visit and gifts from one Grandma and Aunt, and a beautiful outfit and shoes (which she is wearing in these photos) from another Grandma and Aunt. =)

  Thanks for stopping by,