Having cut back on my dancewear obligations to others, I'm having great fun sewing some wovens for little people - children of friends. My dgs towers over me at 12 and my dgd is 15 and really loves the shopping, in any case I do plenty of sewing for her with the dance dresses. I cut out a top for me a few weeks ago, didn't finish it and have now lost more weight so will need to refit it - I'll probably leave it until autumn as I'm hoping I will lose more as I seem to have found the path off that weight plateau at last.
I've made a few more of the little hats than intended (slight lack of attention to US letter v A4 printing of a free online bucket hat pattern) but I think I can use the smaller ones too. If any of you are looking for a good had pattern, this is the free download from
Oliver + S.
The dress is a 3rd birthday gift for a friend's daughter that I see most weeks now and was done from a pattern I bought for my daughter (now 43!). The similarity of the pattern and fabric is just a coincidence as it's some I bought a few years ago for an entirely different purpose.
I've just finished tracing out some other patterns I already had in 6 & 24 months sizes. I kept looking at other patterns on sale – it's hard to know where to stop, but the free hat pattern has led me to their
Building Block Dress which comes in sizes 6 months to 12 years and that's just arrived. I'm not that keen on some of their choices of fabrics, colours and fit in some cases but it will still be ideal for me to adapt to styles I do like as I'm sewing for a few different children.
It's such a lovely change for me but I'm sure if I was having to make them constantly for orders it wouldn't seem such fun.