New Dresses!!

Recently, I discovered a new pattern magazine called Ottobre from Finland (link in sidebar) and ordered a few issues, because, even though I doubted my abilities, the clothes was too cute not to try! So on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I worked on little dresses for the girls. I had bought some remnants earlier in the week that happened to be matching daisy prints--perfect!

I made Helena's first because it was such a simple design (and I had never done gathers by machine--shhh!). The magazine said this dress was simple enough to make one for each day of the week--and I just might! Not bad for an afternoon's work! Here, she had just come inside from blowing bubbles, so the dark spots on the dress are bubble stuff.

You can't really see the dress here, but I love this pose!

I made Isabelle's dress on Saturday, and worked on it obsessively until about 2 A.M. because I was determined that they would wear their matching dresses on Sunday. Having had success with the gathers on Helena's skirt, I tried a multi-tiered, gathered dress with a ruffle!! *whew*
And really, it wasn't as labor intensive as I feared, though it was a bit of work. I won't be making one for every day of the week! But I'm sure I will make another one or two, because I just think it's beautiful. And the pattern is in Helena's size, too! (But those would be big ruffles!)

An interesting thing about the sizing. . . The patterns are European, and so sized in centimeters. The main size is determined by height, but according to her width, Isabelle was a size 64cm. According to height, she was a 74cm (two sizes larger!). So I custom sized it, matching it to my (apparently) long, narrow baby! Helena is a perfect 92cm.


Incidently, at six months, the Isabelle still looks as different as can be from Helena at that age!

Helena at 6 months:
Isabelle at 6 months: