Another One

We helped celebrate another birthday yesterday. Another first birthday. We met these friends over a year ago in child birth class. We were both using the same midwife and ended up splitting the cost and sharing the birth pool that both of our little ones were born in. Their little one, I, was born three weeks before N was. They are moving across the country soon which is sad since we have loved living so close over the past year. It has made the unplanned play date very convenient and was great over the winter when one of us needed a change of pace. I wanted to make something simple for her and something that was easily packable! So I set out to make a simple little dress from Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing for Baby. This dress always works up fairly quickly. The longest part is the bias tape trim, which would probably be quicker if you didn't make the bias tape. The pattern calls for it in the same fabric as the rest of the dress but I love how it looks in a solid matching fabric. There's also a little pocket that is hard to see in this photo but it would also be cute in a solid fabric too.

There's a couple of issues with the pattern, first she calls for too much fabric. Maybe you do need a yard if you make the bias tape with the dress fabric but I only used about 3/4 yd at the most and was able to find scraps of solids to make the bias tape. To me this just makes more sense than cutting up a whole yard. The other problem is that there is a back opening that isn't marked in the pattern. I just left about 4-5'' open on the top. I've made one of these for N too and the back slit didn't seem to need to be a real specific size.

All in all though I love this dress. It works up pretty quickly, is short enough to not be a problem for a crawler and you can easily use it as a tunic top with some pants for a toddler making it's life span a little longer.

Happy Birthday little I, my oh my how one year flies!