Two Blue Dresses

In January, deep in covid-cautiousness, my sister got married. It was a delight to dress up again and celebrate!

Phoebe was the flower girl, although as soon as she said "flower fairy," the title stuck. My sister said we should choose whatever dress we wanted (I have the best sister and she was never, not even for one second, a bridezilla). I had a delicious deep dive on winter flower girl dresses, developing a vision that suited all parties: dressy but not out of regular church-wear, wintry but not black or white, flexible with whatever other colors appeared at the wedding. . . 

I used a simple Prussian blue cotton from my stash. I found a gorgeous net sequin fabric for the overskirt at JoAnn's as well as pink satin to line the bolero. For cold weather, she wears the bolero. For warm weather, it's a sundress! I wanted to give Phoebe as many chances as possible to enjoy wearing her dress, but wanted it to look appropriate in any season. At that time, I could not predict when we would be going out in nice clothes again and I did not want any more nice clothes hanging sadly in our closets, especially the handmade ones. 

 I thought I could just gather two rectangles of the net fabric into a black ribbon and tie the overskirt on at the sides, but it ended up being too heavy so I basted it onto the waistline for the wedding. 

Phoebe and I are both so pleased with this dress! She has indeed worn it in all its iterations since January.

The second blue dress is a school uniform dress. I added some light blue topstitching to liven things up.

It has a deep hem, so I'm planning to let it out as Phoebe gets taller. I love Peter Pan collars and here with the puffed sleeves, it's such a charming retro look. 

I had all the supplies in my stash! When my older kids were starting school, I laid in a supply of fabric that would work for uniforms. Our district currently does uniforms until 6th grade and I think that is just right: let the little kids scramble into a prescribed uniform, let the big kids define their own style as they fledge into adulthood.

Phoebe is really the only child I sew for any more. I feel like I live with three other adults and a child! In fact, Genevieve turned 16 this week, oh my word. Such is the speed of life....