Anne's Other Easter Dress

I hope you all had a truly wonderful Easter! Ours dawned glorious and warm and after church services we spent nearly all the day out of doors, knowing that the next day would be cold and rainy. When the sun is shining, get out in it!

Anne did not wear her pink 1860's gown for Easter. On Saturday I was getting ready to sew on the hook and eyes and she solemnly informed me that she could only wear a white dress to church the next day. She pulled a rather skimpy and sad looking white dress from her closet, a relic of last year when she was (much) shorter and the dress was much newer. She put it on and I was reminded of the scene from the book On the Banks of Plum Creek where Laura and Mary wear their too-short dresses to school and are called long legged snipes.

Luckily, I had a pretty white peasant skirt in my closet. I bought it for half price at the thrift store last year but had never worn it much since, it seems, white is not a practical color to wear around children. It had an elasticized smocked wide waistband and ruffles and ribbons and lace. Anne loved it.

We quickly converted it to a dress by cutting the skirt off the waistband, shortening both, and reattaching. The waistband became the bodice and the skirt was made just long enough to brush the tops of Anne's pink-painted toenails. I used up the pink net to make a petticoat, which was sewn to the skirt, sandwiched between it and a smaller plain innermost petticoat made of cotton. To finish it off, we attached purple ribbon straps and pinned a purple ribbon bow to the front bodice. The remaining purple ribbon we sewed as a header onto some lace from the stash (which came from some beautiful antique curtains a lovely reader sent me several years ago!) which was then sewn onto the skirt.

We added a little purple sweater. On Easter Day, Anne wore a white shirt beneath the dress and soon discarded the sweater as the day grew unseasonably warm.

We spent a very happy afternoon at the river, where a light breeze came through the trees and ruffled curls and dress skirts. The boys looked for rocks and fossils along the shore.

Christ is risen!

Much love,
Sarah