Niecely Niceness

I have a fairly large family. I have several siblings, which means that I have many nieces and nephews. Family gatherings are always fun, if somewhat noisy.

Since I had so much fun making my purse, I decided to keep sewing and make some more stuff. That "stuff" turned out to be dresses for some of my adorable nieces. My nephews are adorable, too, but it is just more fun to sew little dresses, in my opinion. Since I am still keeping strictly to what is available in my stash, I ended up mixing and matching fabrics to construct some really cute little items. Here is the first:



Yellow is the favorite color of this little girl, and it looks good on her, too. The bodice and belt/ties fabric has a cream background with little blue, daisy-like flowers in yellow squares. The A-line skirt and two-part sleeves are of a brighter yellow fabric with red flecks.

Her sister's dress is from the same pattern:



This little girl looks really good in blue. When I initially put the bodice and skirt fabrics next to each other, I was not really sure if they would go well together. They seemed to be just enough "off" that they might clash. Adding the dark blue belt between them turned out to make the combination perfect. Since the dress seemed a little plain, I decided on applique embellishments, and flowers were a natural choice, because she loves flowers. I did simple, free-hand sketches and cut them out of the dark blue. The center of the smaller flower on the bodice is of the skirt fabric, and the centers of the three larger flowers on the skirt are of the bodice fabric. All of the applique work is satin stitched with a grayish-blue thread. I fell in love with this dress before I finished it, and my niece informed me that it is now one of her favorites.

My youngest niece lives a little farther away from me, and I had to email her mother to get her size. (The first two dresses were surprises for the girls and their mother.) I used the same pattern once again, but in a smaller size than either of the other two:



I actually had enough of one fabric for the entire dress this time. The little princess for whom this was made is very blond and fair, so I thought purple would look good on her.



The applique butterfly was a bit trickier than the flowers on the blue dress, but I think it turned out well. After I fused it, I was not sure that the lavender would look good with the purple calico, but the satin stitching really pulled it together and set it off nicely. The inner wings are cut from a batik-dyed cotton. I mailed this dress at the end of last week, so I do not know if they have received it yet. I certainly enjoyed making it, though!

I am so glad I have nieces.