Easter Dress 2012

I love heirloom sewing. I'm not great at it, I don't have a lot of experience with it, but I LOVE the look of lace, batiste, tucks, pintucks, smocking, and embroidery. I smocked a few things for the boys, but of course over the years wished for a girl to try out some heirloom techniques. I've subscribed to Sew Beautiful (heirloom sewing magazine) for years and even bought a whole box of SB's at a yard sale when Blake was 2. And then along came Cosette! Mom and I made her blessing gown after scouring the magazines. I tried my hand at lace shaping with her first Christmas dress. Before we moved last year, I went through all my magazines, marking dresses I wanted to make. In the Easter 1996 SB, I marked a dress "2nd Easter".

Isn't it awesome?! I just love everything about it! And I had some experience with the techniques used, so I thought it was a good plan. I had to ditch the bonnet since it would take up so much lace and I wasn't convinced Cosette would wear it. I started gathering the materials for the dress in February and March. I wanted it to be pink, but couldn't find the right batiste for the right price, so settled on blue like the picture. As for all the lace, holy expensive! I shopped around and was able to pay $2/yard for the laces I needed by ordering them online. I found a similar pattern (found here). It's actually a reproduction of a baby dress from the 1890's. The dress has tons of entredeux (tiny embroidered trim) all over it. This stuff costs $2.85-$3.50 a yard! Thankfully, I found a tutorial on how to replicate the look of entredeux by machine and followed directions in one of my heirloom sewing books.

I started sewing in mid-March, but realized 4 days out from Easter that I was in over my head! My entredeux look-alike stitch was taking FOREVER! I completely underestimated the time required to finish the dress. Oops. So I kept working and last week finally finished the "Easter in May" dress. I love it. It is amazing. It's just like the picture. Of course it has a billion mistakes in it, but I love it so much anyway. In addition to the dress, I made the matching blue slip (really simple) and diaper cover. I even purchased some lace to dress up her socks. Finally, in place of the bonnet I made my own fabric "ribbon" by sewing more entredeux trim and fashioning my strip into a giant bow like girls wore in the early 1900's. I starched it like crazy and stuck crumpled tissue to shape the loops while the starch dried. I also taught myself how to make the ribbon rosette on the yoke. I

Cosey loves her dress and did such a great job modeling her outfit while I took pictures. It was overcast and rainy, so porch pics will have to do! Wanna see?

Hehehe!! I literally squealed when I got her dressed this morning!!

Blake and Hayden could not get enough of her either: "Cosette, you're soooo cute!!"

Serious Victorian look.

Back in time!

The back: I added a couple vintage buttons. You can see the entreduex stitching on either side of the lace insertion on the sleeve and the lace edging of the sleeve.

Sweet baby girl!! The rosette matches the fabric color better in real life. It was hard to catch it with the camera.

As I told Travis this morning, every dang minute was worth it on this dress! I don't even want to think of the HOURS I spent making it. 40? 50? Who knows. As for cost, it was around $50, not including the pattern ($12) which will be used again. It's also roomy and can be made longer by simply taking out the stitching that holds the folded tucks at the bottom. So she will be able to wear it for a couple years. It was totally worth it. I can't wait to sew a few more dresses for Cosey. I've got a few dresses in mind that are simpler with minimal lace for summer, they'll be much cheaper. And I can't wait to dress Cosette up again in her dress for Mother's Day next Sunday!