A Child's Dress

Since moving WA and not having a job, one of my most enjoyable tasks has been sewing!  I already blogged about making baby clothes, but today I finished a dress for my dear friend Nolie's eldest daughter.  When we stopped in Leavenworth to visit them on the way to Colville, her daughter gave us a fashion show and confessed to me that she would love to wear dresses every day but all of her dresses are fancy and need to be dry cleaned.  I told her that I would make her a dress that was easy to wash.  Unfortunately I didn't have my measuring tape handy (it was somewhere in a box buried in the truck).  Nolie told me that she wears a size 9 or 10 kids. 

On to Joann's I went (although I try not to support corporate whores like Joann's, when you need a pattern, it's hard to beat $1.99).  I wanted a long sleeved dress and that was surprisingly hard to find.  I ended up choosing McCall's 6594 and because I wasn't sure on the fit, decided not to do all the putzy embellishments.  The pattern (and all the patterns I saw) only went to size 8, so I looked at the spacing between sizes on the pattern and drew the pattern one size bigger.  While at Joann's I saw that they were having a 50% off clearance fabric sale, so I bought enough fabric to make 3 of these dresses. 

The dress and the neighbor's cat in the corner.

Today I am sending the dress off to my friend, so that her daughter can try it on and see if it fits.  If it fits, I will make another with all the embellishments. 

I also think I need to start working on Christmas presents.  I won't be going to Minnesota for Christmas this year, but we will probably go to Las Vegas to see Jason's parents.  I need something that I can send to MN for the major players (mom, grandma, godson) and then something for Jason's family.  If you have any ideas, let me know!