Butterick 4273 - twice more for good measure

Thank you all for the lovely comments on the plaid dress - once again I was being hyper critical of myself pointing out flaws that probably no one else would notice at all! I haven't actually worn it yet, mainly because I don't have a jacket to go with it and it's been too cold in my office to wear it alone. I think I'll wear it a few times to see how wrinkly it gets to judge whether it's worth salvaging by dyeing a solid colour and taking it in a fraction, but I do like the idea of wearing a scarf with it to hide the mish mash of plaid at the neckline.

And I'm so glad you all liked the background fabric too - trust me you'll be seeing a lot of it in future, but it's a nice change from boring beige lounge which is usually in the background!

During my recent clean up of my sewing room when I was deep in procrastination mode I discovered dresses for Anna that I had cut out ages ago in a rare fit of efficiency, but had only sewn the pink and purple paisley version just recently and I forgot about the other two because I was busy with other sewing projects. But you can't leave kid's clothes sitting around in the UFO pile for too long because they grow so fast there's a real danger they'll become too small before you even finish them.

I'm currently taking part in a stash busting contest being run by the ASG, which ends this Sunday so now was the perfect time to finish them up. Plus it took a little more than an hour for each dress so no excuse not to finish them really! These two are the sister dresses to the paisley dress I made for Anna recently from Butterick 4273, an OOP basic A-line jumper style dress.

One of the dresses is made from a wide wale corduroy in a dark purple/aubergine colour that's been in the stash for a long time because it was quite a small piece. So this was the perfect use for it because there were only the tiniest scraps left after making this simple dress:

 

Anna has been watching me take blog photos too often I think, because she's got that hands on the hips pose down pat: 

 



I added little decorative taps at the empire line made from a purple polka dot cotton, which is actually from another dress for Anna that I'm about 90% finished and some natural timber buttons from the stash. The mix of colours and textures makes me really happy, I think it's a pretty look:

The other version is made from a denim that has been in the stash a long time too - I remember buying it from Home Yardage in York St in the city where Lincraft now is - personally I prefer the old Home Yardage store, it's fabric were far more interesting. Actually I made a dress for Anna from this same fabric when she was only 10 months old, and a skirt for myself not long after I had Anna and there's still a little bit of the fabric left over still.

For this one I added some pink ric rac and buttons down the centre front, and was a bit lazy by using bias binding for the neckline instead of making facings.

Please excuse the colour difference in that second photo - it was a cloudy day when I took that photo.

I've actually done of a lot of sewing this week but haven't had a chance to photograph or blog them. I've made a shirt and a scarf for myself, and have partly made a new shirt for Toby that I'm hoping to get done by Sunday so that I can count it in my stashbusting projects. I'm going for number of completed garments rather than most fabric used since kids clothes don't use all that much fabric and nor do my clothes either. I've surprised myself how many garments I've actually made since the beginning of this year - some months it feels like sometimes I just get my Burda project done and that's it.