The dress that wasn't

I'm back! I've been sewing lots over the past year but only for Liloup (my Etsy shop). Alas, the shoemaker's children have suffered as a consequence.

Years ago, as in, back when my daughter was in a snap n' go carseat and could be driven to another state to spend a few hours chilling in her stroller while I devoured a fabric store, I bought this great fabric to make her a dress. It's from Portsmouth NH and the orange-ish shot cotton at the yoke is heavenly. Based on the amounts of fabric I bought, I can surmise that at the time, I was thinking that I had plenty of time to make something for her in a size 1. It was 2010, after all.

Fast forward three years. The kid's about to turn four and that fabric is still sitting around. Happily, a small post-it note stuck to the pattern at least told me what I was supposed to do with it. And there were was still enough fabric to make a blouse before her birthday:

The excitement that everyone should display when receiving a homemade gift

Forgive the flash and enjoy seeing the fabric very, very clearly.

The specs: McCall's M6059 in size 4 (the motivation to finally make this was that this is the largest size in the pattern, folks!). Easy to construct but still took some time to make elastic casings for the pockets, gather the yoke, etc. I love gathers on girls but man, are they slow and messy.

By the time I picked her up at daycare that afternoon (she wore my outfit to school the very next day, people! I love this kid!), she had pared it down to just the tunic, no undershirt. Hey, it was at *least* 40 degrees out, so...  It gaped a bit under the arms but I don't think she minded a bit.