Dresses for Lil' E and Baby Princess Presto! A pajama dress and ALOT of pictures!

These dresses are for our almost 3 year old granddaughter and her baby sister that is due soon.  She wants to name this little sister, Baby Princess Presto.  I kind of think her mom and dad will come up with a different name, but so far they haven't picked one.  This is the first of our grandchildren of whom we've known the gender before she is to be born.  The others were all surprises.  Because we know this is a little girl, I was able to go ahead and make her a dress.  Rather than a pretty pastel that most think of for a new baby, her mom wanted me to make something that she and her big sis can wear in the fall in the desert.  In other words, a fallish color, but in a light weight fabric, so this is what I did.                         

First, I'll show you Lil' E's dress.  I used this larger dotted cotton fabric for her.  I used, as you can see the white with black dots for the piping, binding on the sleeves, and as a border on the skirt.   Her mom is going to call me with a length measurement, at which point I may adjust the length at the binding, making it narrower or at the bottom, making the lower border narrower.  What do you think?  The white border is sewn into a hem pleat on the inside, so this would be easy to do. The ruffle is from a black with white polka dotted cotton.  (All of these are 100% cotton due to Lil' E's skin allergies.)   I decided to add the polka dotted ribbon sash because Lil' E is very thin, and even though I used a size 2 for the body and a 3 for the length, it still looked too big.  As you can see, I wove green ribbon into the smocked panel. ** I never use a pattern for my smocking.  Then end results just happen when I'm finished.  Someone recently told me that she had used the same smocking template that I did on that yellow linen napkin dress.  I don't think so.  I blurted out, "You didn't use this pattern, because I made it up."  I shouldn't have said that, but it just came out.  Oh well.                                                      

Now for Baby Princess Presto's dress............  I reversed the piping, binding and border at the hem, I used the black with white polka dots, and the white with black for the ruffle and a trim at the top of the hem border.  I also used the white with black as ruffles on the little bloomers.  Again, I wove the green ribbon into the smocking panel.  I also used it to hide the raw edges of the ruffles on the bloomers.  I also added three little bows on the bloomers.             

This picture is very lopsided?  I don't know what I did.  As you can see I ran the piping around the necklines and down the back openings on both dresses.   

I also made Lil' E a "pajama dress".  That's what she calls gowns.  You aren't going to believe this, because I really can't.  I made this completely, totally, 100% by hand.  We went out of town last weekend for a family reunion.  We had about a 2 1/2 hour drive each way, so besides packing my books and crossword puzzles, I decided to put this piece of fabric, a needle, a spool of thread, and a pair of scissors in my bag.  I started off by sewing 5 rows of running stitches across the front catching the edge of the turned under edge that makes the ruffle at the top.  I pulled to gather these rows of stitches, then I smocked with a very simple stitch across the front.  I then ran one row of a running stitch across the back piece, once again catching the top part that I turned under to make the ruffle at the top.  I pulled the stitches to gather.  Then, I stitched tiny little bitty stitches down the sides to form the side seams, but I actually did this twice because I made French seams.  Yes, by hand!!!!  Then I made  a tiny rolled hem, again, by hand.  Last, I folded over the two strips for the straps and stitched with a whip stitch to finish them, and then I attached them to the "pajama dress" on the inside on the back, but on the outside on the front.  I decided to use the border as part of the design on the straps.  My Lil' E loves princesses.  I guess that's pretty evident considering the name she is giving her little sis.  I don't know where the Presto part comes in!?!