Autumn Baby Gowns

I fell a bit behind in my sewing so thus am just now finishing up Malachi's items. I still have his caps to make and I have decided that Judah's cloak-coat from last fall will work just fine for Malachi, even though it is a bit big. Malachi still has a red and white cotton twill sacque style coat I made him earlier this year and it still fits, even though it is a bit small. So between smallness and bigness he will fit into them somehow.

Here are his gowns. They still need buttonholes and buttons in the back but they are done enough to take pictures of.

The Autumn Gold Gown:

This is really a mustard yellow and dark brown print fabric, but "autumn gold" sounds so much more fetching, don't you think? It is a nice, soft cotton I picked up at Wal Mart for $1.50/yard. The gown took exactly 1 yard so it is not a bad dress for so cheap a price! The hem falls to just above Malachi's ankles. Long enough to cover his petticoats by 1" or so. The skirts are about 60"-62" in circumference.

The bodice has a jewel neck and is gathered at the waist and is quite roomy. The sleeves are gathered bishop style and are joined to a closed cuff band. I am somewhat of a pipe-aholic so I piped the neck edge and the armscyes and the bottom edge of the waistband even though, due to reading on the Sewing Academy, piping is not necessarily necessary for childrens gowns. Hey, I like how it looks. But I tell you, piping teeny little armscyes in dresses is *not* fun. That was the worst part of the entire construction process. Usually I handsew piping into baby armscyes but this time I used the machine. It's actually faster and easier to do it by hand. It looks like there is a pucker at the armscye in this picture but its just a fold in the fabric; thankfully no puckers resulted from machine-sewing the piping in. Here is the yellow dress with one of the pinafores. The pinafores are a little short, I think but I had to use the fabric I had on hand. I had a yard of this green cotton print but the lady who cut it did a horrible job on the cutting. The ends were both cut on *extreme* angles so by the time I evened it all out I had a lot less fabric than I wanted. But it works. It will keep Malachi's dress clean and that is what matters. The Half-Blood Print Gown:
So yes, that is a stupid name. And yes, I've been on a horribly dubious Harry Potter kick lately. (I even dreamed about H.P. a few nights ago) But this cotton does sport a lovely deep blood red color with little tan and white designs.

Here it is with the other pinafore. This pinafore was made from leftover fabric from Judah's Pumpkin Colored Gown I posted about earlier this year. I'm not sure if I like the orange and red together so I may switch pinafores when Malachi actually wears these items. I'm not sure yet.

So that is the breadth of my sewing accomplishments this weekend. I did acquire a work table for my sewing room over the weekend, as well as a lovely bookcase for the sewing spot to keep things tidy. Hopefully I will not get behind on my other projects!

I do wish you all a lovely holiday. It is a beautiful day here. David is fishing - later we're going walking by the river - and tonight he will make some steaks and we'll have a key lime pie (which I still need to make!) as a last salute to the summer.

Blessings, dear ones!

Love,

Sarah