birthday gift sewing

On Friday we got home from the hospital around lunchtime. We all ate a bit, then Hubs (who is suffering from a sinus thing) crashed on the couch, and AJ crashed in his crib for a monster nap, so I decided to start the birthday outfit I intended to give as a gift on Saturday.

Nothing like waiting until the last possible minute.

I used Butterick 4176 in a size 2.

{As an aside, let me just say that I have no concept of appropriate sizes to sew for other people's children. When I asked my friend to measure her daughter's chest so I could make the right size, I almost fell over when she gave me the exact same measurement as Daughter...who is SIX YEARS OLD. Folks, believe me when I say I have some skinny kids.}

I must recommend this pattern if you have little girls in your life. It's easy and it's adorable. However, I must also recommend you trace the pattern pieces carefully, which I did NOT do. I therefore ended up with a dress back, and more of a "tunic" front. Somehow my pieces were off by about 2" which really cannot be fixed (I had pinned and cut them). There was nothing to do but chop off the bottom of the dress front and make the whole thing into more of a tunic-length top.

But I didn't feel I could just give that piece with a lame story about how I screwed up at the very last minute. So after bedtime on Friday I made a late-night dash back to Joann's and thankfully they had a bolt of coordinating fabric so I could rescue myself with some wee matchy pants.

I washed and dried the fabric Friday night while I finished stitching the top, and then whipped up the pants on Saturday between our zoo outing and the birthday party. I used french seams throughout both pieces so there are absolutely no raw edges except for the crotch seam, which I zig-zagged for strength and to prevent lots of fraying.

I love this pattern. It just comes out so cute every time.

Here's the back, with the sweet coordinating blue button I found in my button stash. I did purchase the fabric for this because it was a gift, and because I don't have many cuts of fabric in my stash that are appropriate for toddler garments.

The rest of the weekend was devoted to house-and-yard-work while I dreamed of the eleventy-billion projects I want to do. I went shopping in my yarn stash and came up with two lovely skeins of alpaca yarn, and for the first time I am joining a knitalong! I've pretty much been a lifelong anti-joiner so this is a big deal for me. I'm off to watch Doctor Who with Hubs and knit a few rows...I'll be back with more on that soon...