A dress, or three

Finally, finally, I got around to making my Enid Gilchrist simple empire line dress... I drafted it out and sewed my 'muslin' here ... I don't know why it took me so long to make it for real, but I'm pretty happy with the result :) I made a couple of mods to the pattern, making the neck and armholes slightly lower than the pattern ... the neck was purely a design choice, but going on my past experience making Enid dresses, the armholes would otherwise have been a bit tight.Next time, I will also put in a back pleat on the skirt ...standing up is fine, trying to get elegantly into the rear seat of a friends car was no so fine! :D

The other two dresses were mostly made by my daughter ... after nearly finishing them, and then realising that they were too big for her

(and not wanting to be bothered with taking in the seams some),

she gave them to me (minus zip closures and hems) :)

I love them both, but especially the yellow floral one (awesome thrifted sheet from Savers).

For the white and blue one she used New Look 3968 and the yellow floral, Butterick 4980

My serendipitous hat

...so, all winter I have been searching for the perfect toddler hat pattern. I've found a few that have come close, a few that have been cute but not functional (and visa versa), too small, too big, too hilarious ... (yep, I've tried one or two!), but decided that as winter was coming to an end, I'd give up the search for this year and tell his mum that I'd failed, and to use the earflap hat that we bought from the markets on our last trip to Melbourne (there are three things that come home with us whenever we go to Melbourne ... Earflap Hats, "Born to be Wild Melbourne" t-shirts, and Krispy Kreme donuts! :D)

On my "to do" list for ages, has been to try Elizabeth Zimmermann's method of knitting fairisle... so last week, armed with my Knitting Workshop book, some yarn, and a couple of hours free time, I followed her lesson, which happened to involve making a hat. I didn't give any thought to the size, or yarn, or anything about how it would turn out, as I was making it purely to learn a new technique.

The end result was, that I not only learned an ultra easy way of knitting with more than one colour, but yes, we now have an awesome toddler sized hat, that not only we love, but more importantly, that he seems to like enough not to pull off his head at every chance :)

(Hope it fits next year though, as spring has arrived and he no longer needs it!)