birthday dress

Clover's birthday balloon dress is all made and ready to be worn rejected.

I tried doing a little fitting on her after I got the bodice done, just to see if the sleeves were going to fit. It's a good thing I did, because I must have slightly messed something up. The arm holes were a bit too small to fit right, and I had to do a bunch of ripping and resewing. Somehow, the arms made Clover phobic of her dress, and she decided she needed to scream about it. Repeatedly. Oh well. Maybe she will be over it by Tuesday. 

I still haven't decided on a dessert for her big day, either. As of right now, we are in a gluten free experiment, which has morphed into a sugar elimination of sorts too. I'm beginning to intentionally avoid refined sugar sources to see what happens. It's really hard to know what is "normal" in a little person, especially when she is your first. I'm beginning to wonder if there are any dietary causes for her overwrought emotions, outbursts, obsessive tendencies, etc. This has just been a tough season since Nov with the man of the house being gone most of the time, and I know it's affected all of us, but her little quirks predate winter. So if limiting her sugar intake to fruit, a bit of locally sourced maple syrup on her oatmeal, and honey in plain yogurt doesn't help, I might take her to the "crunchy" doctor to ask for suggestions. Maybe food allergy tests?

Anyway...the dress!

Some more of my beloved Sarah Jane balloons. That yard of fabric is getting stretched out! I didn't have enough left for the contrast band at the bottom, and I didn't feel like deciding on another print to go with the rest of the dress, so I just stuck with the linen. 

The pinstripe is a charcoal slub linen that I picked up to make myself something with. That hasn't happened yet. Oops. Also, the dress still needs a third button, because I picked out the last three white buttons of this size I had, made three buttonholes, and then discovered that Clover had thieved the buttons from the kitchen island. As it turns out, spiderman was "pooping buttons" and I found two of them near his hindquarters. The third must still be in digestion because it hasn't turned back up.

 

I decided to do flannel as the bodice facing so that it would be nice and soft against her skin. So some of the flannel from Violet's peacoat/the Clover peacoat that I still haven't made yet went into this.

The dress has pockets too! It's hard to see them, so here is Big Bird peeking out of one. 

 

I think it's adorable, even if Clover thinks it's possessed. Just seeing the bodice on her was so cute. If I can get her to forget her phobia, it will look even a million times cuter on her.