Tuesday, April 16, 2019

My Children Match!

I can explain how this happened, but not the why.  Really do not understand the deep desire to dress my three children alike.  What is this? An orphanage with uniforms? A type of branding? What?  I cannot tell you, but my delight in these outfits (and these children) is real and true.

I asked Genevieve if she wanted me to make her a spring dress - she is definitely working on figuring out her style, so I deferred to her in pattern and fabric choice when she said yes.  Well, there was so much of the splashy daisies fabric hat I wondered if she'd like me to make Phoebe a dress and be twinsies.  Why yes, she thought that would be fun! Giddy, I then told Ben I should make him a splashy daisy bow tie but he said what about a shirt.  Well. Holy cow!  You see? I was in deep.


Genevieve resisted all the cutesy features on her dress pattern and kept it simple.  We had to have a number of fittings because the pattern was too big.  The plan was for her to wear her cute turquoise flats with the dress, but as I was hunched over the sewing machine, she outgrew the darn shoes.  Such is the way with kids at this age!


I played around with trims on Phoebe's dress, and I love how it turned out.  The white bias tape on the ruffles really punches them up.  I was thrilled with the lace placement I came up with on the bodice, a kind of Lilly Pulitzer look that I am itching to do again.  It didn't require a ton of lace and is much more effective than just a neck trim. 

As you can see, I ran out of splashy daisies for Ben's shirt.  He's so big! So I mixed in some navy gingham like it was on purpose. I thought he would wear this shirt with dark jeans, but he chose the shorts and Converse. His style veers towards flamboyant (hello, bow ties), so this shirt suits him well. 

I'm a little surprised I managed to churn out these clothes this spring! I can easily justify zoning out to Netflix and knitting every night, but I've been redirecting my waning energy to the sewing machine recently. Sometimes I do just go to bed when I'm too tired for anything but staring.  My daytime brain is for my freelance gigs. It was fun to pull off this splashy daisy project!

10 comments:

Lisa said...

You are pure genius in the mixed-pattern department, I always say it; you really should take that talent and run (somewhere) with it!
The biggest thing here is that Ben was going along with it, because it's not what one might expect. What a great shirt! And, the dresses, too.

Lana said...

I love it! I dressed my children alike too via the sewing machine. I love the gingham with the daisies, it is pure genius.

Alica said...

I love it! And your kids are getting to be so grown up!!

Polly said...

Hello, Easter morning, you're ready!

I love matching clothes on children also. I cannot explain the phenomenon but I LOVE IT.

And I'm so impressed by your industriousness. My kids are in bed around 9-9:30 and after that I tidy the house and fall into bed myself. Long gone are my days of night sewing...which is not a good thing, as I'm staring Easter in the face and the only thing I've done is sew two panels of my daughter's skirt together....yikes.

Christy said...

So adorable. O, my. Cool painted fingernails that match the dress. =)

e said...

This is all kinds of wonderful! How great that your kids are still willing to dress alike! The dresses and shirt(!) all turned out so well, and everyone looks happy. What a beautiful family.

Tammy said...

So fun! Enjoy it while they do! :)

I am the oldest of 9 kids, I was 16 the last time we all matched, and there were 7 of us at the time. As a 16-year old, I was Not Thrilled, haha...

Nancy In Boise said...

Looks great!!!

Becky said...

I love these! Not too matchy, just enough matchy. And I love the trim on Pheobe's dress.

BLD in MT said...

That.Is.Awesome. I really like the coordinated fabric on Ben's shirt and those ruffles are ADORABLE.