After planning a fluffy princess style dress, I changed my plans last minute to a Hobbit style dress in wools and linens. The reason? Pure practicality. Before these pictures were taken the dress had already endured a full frontal dousing with milk, smeared oatmeal and smashed banana. Also a cookie or two which left chocolate streaks on both dress and baby. (You can still see tenants of cookie on her face...but the dress hides it all!) Wool is a go to fabric for garments that see hard use...and a 17 month old baby us definitely hard on clothes!
All the fabrics came from my stash so the dress cost me nothing to make. The bodice is of heavy green wool coating with a faux inset of red wool bunting. The sleeves are yellow linen. The underskirt is black linen with a woven stripe and the overskirt s silvery grey wool suiting. I wasn't sure at first how all the colors would work together but now I really like the whimsical effect.
I used the Sense and Sensibility Girls Regency Gown Pattern for the bodice. A size 2 now! Anne is growing. The skirts are rectangular panels and the sleeves loose elbow length puffs.
The bodice is decorated with rows of antique lace and green silk ribbon. It looked rather plain so I worked a bit of simple free hand embroidery along the edges of the faux inset. My embroidery is crude at best (let's call it folky, shall we?) But it definitely helped dress up the bodice just enough to make it festive.
The little cap (Anne calls it a bunnit) was a last minute addition. It is made of black cotton velvet and lined in black linen with grosgrain ties. I embroidered it differently than I did the dress as I did not want the two items to appear as though they were intentionally made to go together.
I am not sure if Hobbits celebrate Christmas but if they do, I think Anne would fit in quite well. Hobbits are fond of bright colors (chiefly green and yellow) and Anne's dress has both.
Merry Christmas!
Love,
Sarah