Turquoise dress with a peacock

I was surprised when Emma asked me to make her a turquoise dress with a peacock - because her favourite colour is purple. When I asked her why she wanted this particular dress, she replied, "Because I think it would look good!"

I could't argue with that logic, so here's the turquoise dress with a peacock, plus a hat and bag:

Catching up - turtles

It's a long time since I blogged - for all the usual reasons of being busy - but I have been making things over that time. The theme for Olivia's birthday party was turtles and her favourite colour is green, so I was very pleased with the fabric I found for her birthday outfit - if you enlarge the photo, you will see that the dress and bag are covered with turtles.

This photo gives a better view of the dress:

Christmas outfits

Okay, it's already March but here is the last of my December sewing bee - I can't remember what I actually made in December but there were dresses, hats, bags, Christmas stockings . . . And it's taken me this long to finish getting photos. 

Emma was reluctant to model her outfit: "I don't wear it every day, you know. It's only for Christmas and special parties". However, after some high-level negotiations involving chocolate frogs, she really got into the spirit of it. I used Simplicity pattern 5540 for the hat, dress and matching purple shorts (not visible in this photo) and scaled down the reversible bucket bag pattern from Lisa Lam's The Bag Making Bible for the matching bag - which is lined with the dotted fabric I used for the dress.

And here is Olivia looking very cheeky in her Christmas dress (Simplicity 7189):

Olivia wasn't very happy when they opened their presents on Christmas Eve. She acted as if there had been a gross miscarriage of justice - or someone had switched the gift tags around. Why? Because she didn't get a bag! So the next day (yes, Christmas Day), I made a bag for her to match her birthday outfit.

Here are the two girls with their hats and bags, posing with Daddy before heading off to the coast:

Both bags are reversible - this is the reverse of Olivia's bag:

Emma's Christmas present

I've finally finished Emma's Christmas present - 2 weeks late but better late than never. The pattern is McCall's 2213 and it's a nice cool outfit for our current heat wave.


Here's a back view, which I think is cuter than the front view.

Season's greetings

Season's greetings to all. I spent the lead-up to Christmas trying to do some sewing and having everything imaginable go wrong - including sewing two fronts and two backs together, realising I didn't have the required elastic at 5.30pm and, the last straw, discovering on Christmas Eve that my machine wouldn't zigzag. So I now have several unfinished items, including the outfit that I was making Emma as a Christmas present.

However, she arrived yesterday wearing the dress and hat, which I had made for her birthday in September but hadn't gotten around to photographing previously.