A few months ago, one of my mom’s friends was cleaning out her sewing room and came across a bunch of oddball old sewing patterns from the early 1980s. Mostly it’s children’s or baby clothes, though there were two ladies blouses…one rather dubious 1980s “Italian” style blouse with big shoulders and a floppy collar, and the other a really cute cowgirl blouse, which I started assembling today.
But before I got going on the cowgirl blouse, I had another, much more darling project to work on. Two of our friends are expecting a baby (in fact, I do believe said baby is being born pretty much as I’m typing). I always like to make a little something for friends’ whose babies are pending, and of course this is no exception. It worked out beautifully, what with me “inheriting” a bunch of old-school baby-clothes patterns, and a friend expecting a baby.
So, here’s the pattern in question:
It has about two dozen different pieces that can be recombined in countless ways to make everything you see on the pack.
What I ended up making was this outfit, but without the collar, as none of the fabric I had would co-operate.
The lightweight cotton of Dress 1 wanted to shred when I turned the collar, and the flannel I used for the other two was just too bulky. So, here’s what I came up with:
Lightweight cotton plaid with contrasting yoke and matching bloomers. This was in the smallest size, which basically equates to 1-3 month size.
I had on hand some light blue buttons that were a perfect match for the back closure.
I also had a tiny scrap of picot-edge trim which made the perfect finishing treatment for the neckline on this dress.
This was cut in the medium size (3-6 month) in flannel, with long sleeves, for winter. Contrast bodice and bloomers, with lace frills at the sleeve heads and neckline.
Once again I just happened to have on hand some buttons which co-ordinate perfectly. I decided to go ahead and use the pink thread to affix the buttons as I thought the contrast would be interesting.
If you look closely at the Paisley print, it has little butterflies and hearts hidden in the pattern. I loved the cheery colors and the busy print. I used purple rick-rack as trim/finishing on the hem and at the neckline.
I went funky with the buttons for this dress. I picked out four from my random tub-o-buttons that co-ordinated with colors in the print. Blue, green, orange, and pink.
Making up baby clothes is really a lot of fun because you can get quite whimsical with it, and nobody will think the less of you for doing so.
In the (slightly adapted) words of Mighty Maggie, “there’s a very limited amount of time where you can dress them all Chauncey.”
Ohh…… [adorability overload]
It was such a fun project. I don’t make that much baby clothing, but every time I do, I have a crazy amount of fun with it.
Here’s another example of what happens when I’m let loose with tiny patterns and rick-rack:
OK, right, that level of cuteness is just plain illegal and likely to cause mass-swooning in public places. Fantastic colour scheme by the way.
I love them!!!
Thank you!
I love making up little girl clothes in something other than the eternal and everlasting PINK. I just wasn’t coming up with much for good cotton prints the last time I was in the fabric store. I really lucked out with the daisy print and gingham when I made up that outfit for little Sylvia.