Happy Hello Kitty Birthday

My sweet girl turned 5 recently and I wanted to make her a special dress. For her birthday, I like to do something a bit "more"--more ruffly like last year's dress, or more twirly and more pink like this year's. :)

I chose the Peppermint Swirl dress from Candy Castle patterns, so I had Danielle pick the Hello Kitty fabric she wanted for the main print. She chose a sweet pink gingham Hello Kitty fabric and I used a sparkly pink to coordinate. I also used a tone-on-tone white and a hot pink fabric with white spots on it (that reminded me of the strawberries) to round out the flounces.

I didn't get the best pictures--I was sick that week and was rushing to get the dress done on top of the party preparations. That's okay though, birthdays are more important than blog pictures :)

I used a size 4 slim bodice with a size 5 length. It's slightly empire, with a sash between the bodice and the skirt. And oh that skirt! There are 16 flounces, each made of two pieces. I got excited to make her a dress with a 9 foot hem, thinking it would be super twirly. In the middle of hemming it, I wondered why it was taking so long...then I realized I had read the bias requirements too quickly--I used 9 YARDS, which meant the hem was 27 feet around!!

It makes for one very twirly dress! She loved it and it was over-the-top enough for a birthday :) The fit was good but the dress was a little longer than I expected. It hit an inch or two below her knees. That's probably a good thing though--when she gets to spinning, the dress lifts up quite a bit!

She loved her dress and so did a lot of the moms at the party. One of them said she was going to talk to me about a dress for her daughter's birthday. I think she will be scared off when I tell her what I would charge for a dress that takes 4+ hours to make and uses several yards of fabric! It was totally worth it to see my daughter shine on her special day though (cue cheesy/creepy photo effects):

And just because, here's one more picture of that pretty skirt:

Ruffle Pop Skirt

As always, so much to share, so little time! I was asked this weekend how I found time to sew. I guess it comes at the expense of blogging :) It used to feel like an item wasn't really done until it was blogged about. Now, that's kind of lessened as I have other ways to share what I work on (the ladies at work are oh-so-patient with me!) But since this blog acts as a sort of journal for me, I'd like to do better and play catch up. For real life, as my now-5-year-old would say.

This is a little outfit I put together for one of Danielle's friends at school. She was having a Hello Kitty themed birthday party and I noticed the birthday girl and her sister often wear appliqued shirts, so I thought handmade would be appreciated.

I have been really wanting to make Tie Dye Diva's Ruffle Pop skirt, and when I found a hot pink coordinating print for that bright blue HK print, I knew it was a match. Some eyelet lace made it an even quicker sew. I didn't feel up to embroidering a shirt so I went with the suggestion of some online sewing "friends" and added a plain t-shirt to go with it. Danielle picked the pink and I like it.

To round it all out I made a headband. I used some ruffle elastic that I found while looking for inspiration for the baby gown I made recently. (I wish I could have ordered it in time to use for that outfit). I ruffled a long strip of the blue fabric and used this Kitty Feltie design from GGDesigns to add a Hello Kitty-ish kitty to the middle.

The design comes with a no-mouth option, but I also left
the ear detail off as well.

I glued the ruffle onto a felt circle, then sandwiched the seam of the headband (which was just the ruffle elastic with the ends sewn together) in between the base felt circle and another piece of felt. A little glue on the bow, and more hot glue to put HK in the middle, and I was done!