Many of you have been there—that place in time where your idea of what your child or grandchild should wear differs from that child’s opinion. Selecting fabric, pattern, smocking design, etc. is so easy when they are little, but as they develop their own personal taste you have to go with the flow.
Judy Day has done just that with fabulous results for her 9 year old granddaughters. Judy has always made holiday outfits in groups of 4, one for each girl and one for each girl’s doll.  But this year, she recognized and acknowledged her girls’ growing sense of individual style. Well, at least their different color choices.
Here is Judy’s story about the Easter outfits.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I had visions of smocked silk dupioni dancing in my head for Easter this year. Pink for Courtney and lilac for Kennedy. Their mothers wanted something more casual. So I decided on a smocked sun dresses.
The pattern is KELLYÂ from Trisha’s Treasures by Trisha Smith.
www.TrishasDesigns.com.   The pattern is sized 1-6 and 7-12. This pattern has 2 options for the ties. I chose to criss-cross the ties over the back and then run them through guides stitched at the waist and tied in a bow. This keeps the back of the sundress from dipping at the center from the weight of the skirt.
I dug around and found smocked inserts that I had done for the girls about 4 years ago and never used. The smocking design is from Karen Faylor’s Venice; Sew Beautiful Issue 113–2007.
With nothing in my stash that I wanted to use and no time to order fabric, I headed to JoAnn’s. I was pleasantly surprised to find the perfect multi-color fabric.
The fabric is Lisette by Liesl & Co. It is cotton sateen and the hand is luscious! I had not seen this line at JoAnn’s before, but apparently they had it last year also. I bought all they had and was a yard short of what the pattern called for to make 2 dresses.
After measuring and folding and re-measuring, I was able to cut both dresses with nothing left over after cutting the bias pieces.
The pattern directions are well written and easy to follow with pictures and side tips included. I did adapt the waist line to incorporate bias piping instead of a wide band. The woven ribbon personalized each dress for the girls with “their” color!
I was disappointed that there would be no doll dresses this year. However, on my trip to Fl to “babysit,” I found more fabric at the JoAnn’s there! So the dolls got matching dresses.
The doll dress pattern is an adaptaion of the Birthday Party Trio pattern from Joan Hinds 30-Minute Doll Clothes; Sewing with Nancy. The smocked bodice for the doll dress was created from the arm hole cutout of the girls smocked bodice by whipping the straight sides of the smocking pieces together and adding more fabric on the sides…..can’t waste any smocking!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The dresses are lovely, Judy. All FOUR of them and the headbands! I especially love the use of the armhole cutout for the dolls’ smocked insert!
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