Sewing for Princess V!

The blogging has lacked a bit over the summer! The days were long and all I wanted to do was to enjoy the sunshine :) that mixed with work travel and such just meant that blogging was a bit sacrificed.

Annual 'Grandma Camp' was held the last week of August. This has to be the highlight of my summer every year!!! The princess gets to come and stay with me for an entire week, just her and I and boy do we have fun and am I exhausted. The energy of a 4 year old is just incredible.

We had so much fun and most days spent several hours out and about doing and seeing things and then lots and lots of quality time together at home.

We went to:
The Garfield Park Conservatory

Chicago Water Taxi

12th street beach- By the Adler Planiterium

The Shedd Aquarium

And one day we just stayed home and watched movies and had a carpet picnic and sewed, the weather was terrible!

Plus several things that we did not get pictures of!
Fabric shopping for purple dress fabric
Back to school shopping
to Wendy's pool, Wendy from Couture Counselor 

This year she asked me for some new dresses and making them during grandma camp was perfect timing so that she could be involved.

At 4 she is a bit small to be doing any actual sewing. However, she helped with picking out her fabrics, placing pattern weights to hold down the patterns and passing me pins one at a time.
At the sewing machine she sat on my lap and put her hands on mine as we guided the fabric (reminded me of when I was little and would stand on my dad's shoes to dance!), she removed the pins and operated the foot up/down button, turned the fabric when needed and used the snips to trim the threads. I think if someone was there to see us they would have seen a smile of delight on my face and a look of extreme concentration on her part! For the sewing the only part she helped with was to sew the kangaroo pockets onto each dress. Pockets are her favorite part!! I think it took longer to sew on one kangaroo pocket than it did to make the rest of the dresses!

POCKETS!!!!!!

The kangaroo packets are fully lined, the hot air balloon is a self fabric lining, and the have reinforced stitches so that they hopefully stand up the the wear and tear of a 4 year old!

She was so proud to show her mommy and daddy the dress that she helped make! 'GiGi and I make these! I helped GiGi! On the SEWING MACHINE!!'

Fingers crossed that she will be a new generation of sewers and makers!

First dress was made from Hot Air Balloon fabric a very nice cotton lawn and I used a free pattern from the internet called the flutter sleeve dress. (of course I didn't bookmark it and now cant find the site again) I added the kangaroo pocket and the pom pom fringe and lengthened the dress. The top edge of the sleeves and neckline has a bias strip casing that has a narrow elastic threaded through. I used self fabric bias strips for the casing.

The second dress was made form fabric that she choose at New Rainbow Fabrics on Roosevelt road in Chicago. It was a deep purple eyelet and the lining is a lavender cotton. This dress was basically a copy of one of her favorite dresses that I did a quick rub off of. It ended up with a little bit of a handkerchief hem because I wanted to keep the eyelet border. The back closure is made with a continuous bias binding and bias loops with purple buttons from my button collection.  I think it looks darling on her!

I haven't sewn many items for the princess. Only her baptism dress, a couple Christmas dresses, her winter coat and some PJ pants and now these dresses. She gets many of her clothes from hand me downs from a friend with a daughter a little older than her. Plus these little ones grow so fast! This exception was made purely because she asked for them, I will never discourage her wanting to make something! Plus... I may have a bit of a soft spot when it comes to her!

Happy Sewing!