Monday, December 23, 2013

A Hobbit Christmas Dress for Anne

For Christmas Sunday Anne wore her new Christmas dress to church and some what unwilling allowed me to take a few photos to share. She is now 17 months old and standing still for pictures is utterly distasteful to her. Still, we managed a few decent ones.



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

10 comments:

  1. Beautiful!! I was inspired by your original posts about the Hobbit dresses to make one for my 4 month old for Christmas. It was so much fun! I ended up matching a matching vest and bow tie for my son, too.

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  2. How darling! And I think choosing such practical fabrics is a wonderful idea; she'll be able to get so much more wear out of it! (I work at a fabric store, and I can't imagine all those thin acetate taffetas and poly satins people keep buying for princess dresses hold up very well...)

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  3. Hey Sarah!,

    Wow, what a beautiful dress! It's perfect for christmas :) Love the yoke with the contrasting color! The dress is so cute! Well done!

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  4. Oh that is too cute, Sarah! I love it! She is such a little sweetheart! :)

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  5. Very hobbit-like! And very Christmassy :)
    And I love the word "bonnit" - I can almost imagine the little girl saying it; it's so cute! :)

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  6. Sarah Jane, this is so cute and folksy. The colors and embroidery are perfect, really darling, on Anne! I love how we both took such different directions with "stash Christmas dresses" for our little ones (I also didn't realize they are so close in age! Fun!). You are absolutely right with the practicality of linen and wool at this point. :) I was on my toes all Sunday morning until Lavinia's dress was removed before naptime. I will remember that for next time, although it's so hard to resist the fancy fabrics...

    Merry Christmas to you and yours!

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  7. In The Hobbit, Gandalf and Bilbo celebrate Yule with Beorn on the trip back home to The Shire.

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  8. What a cutie! You did a fabulous job on it.

    Merry Christmas to you and yours!

    Tiff

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  9. Oh Sarah! I had to totally laugh at your "totally distatesful to her" statement!! How true! Active little people don't enjoy sitting still for getting their photos taken at all...neither do 11 or 16 year olds for that matter...! But you did take so many adorable ones of that Anna! they are so darling and the dress is so beautiful and colorful!

    I hope you had a wonderfully blessed Christmas!!
    Gina

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  10. Dear Sarah Jane,
    Miss Bunnitt hobbess is a sweetie. Love the shot of her talking as you are photographing her. The little outfit is such a keeper!!
    Hugs,
    Natalie

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Thank you for your lovely thoughts!