Dress to see santa

I've just notched up another parenting milestone - the annual torture of getting a photo taken with Santa Claus! Despite getting to the department store before the 9.30am start time, there was quite a queue and we waited 45 minutes to get our photo. I spent that time showing Anna all the christmassy stuff trying to get her used to it all, but to no avail because as soon as she got close to Santa there were tears and screams and lots of them!

So Anna's first christmas photo turned into an impromptu family portrait with Santa because the only way to get her to stop screaming was for me to hold her. She still didn't smile though, and this photo was the best of many that the photographer took (thank god for digital photography!):
Of course I had to make her a little outfit to have her photograph taken in. I made a simple little cotton dress with matching bloomers, and a detachable red spotted belt with a fabric yo yo on it.

For the dress I used a now OOP Butterick 400, which is a simple and basic pattern but which I knew fitted her having used it before. Again the line drawing on this pattern envelope is deceiving - it says one size only and shows a baby in the picture, yet Anna is nearly 12 months old now and it is still a little loose on her! I know she is a skinny baby, but this would be swimming on any baby younger. I left the fit a little loose though to make it easy to get on her, and just used the red belt to cinch it in. For the bloomers I just used a pattern from the Amy Butler Little Stitches for Little Ones book, again because I've used it before and I know it fits. And I'm trying to get my money's worth out of this book!

Originally I was just going to tie the red belt in a bow around Anna's chest, but the little munchkin kept pulling it apart and it sort of looked messy anyway. So I did what I did for the lilac top in my previous post - I put a press stud in the middle to join it but I also folded the ties down so they would hang down at just the right angle:

To cover the press stud and the folded section of the ties I put a fabric yo yo with a fabric covered button in the middle over the top of it which I think looks ultra cute and better than a bow: I also made some little shoes to match, which you don't see in the christmas photo because Anna kept pulling them off after about 2 seconds! But they are too cute:

I made these by adapting the free pattern for Heather Bailey's Bitty Booties. All I did was cut down the upper portion of the shoe, and sew in a ric rac ribbon tie.

And speaking of shoes, can any of you believe that I have gone practically all year without buying any new shoes at all?! Except slippers, which don't count, but I've gone through three pairs of those already. Long time readers would know I have a little shoe obsession, even having a special shoe cupboard for them and I spent almost my entire time pregnancy wondering about what shoes to wear (as it turned out, high heels still at 8 months). But I rectified that recently by acquiring these two pairs in the last few weeks:













The red heels are a birthday present from my parents and are actually of a sensible height to be very comfortable. And the sandals I bought on sale for 30% off and are a lovely coral colour with a very soft and safe rubber sole which is exactly what is needed when chasing a baby around who in the space of the last few days has decided to not only crawl but to climb stairs, walk around holding onto the furniture and stand up without holding onto anything at all!


Don't worry, the flyscreen door is closed in that last photo!