My first grandbaby is 5 ½ now, with absolutely no baby left in her. She still loves her smocked dresses, but she also loves all that is fashionable for the 4-7 year old age group.
Have any of you heirloom fans found yourself smitten with garments 180 degrees from your comfort zone? When I found these jeans, I had to admit they were pretty cute. With the embroidered, hot-fix jeweled back pockets and the neon pink belt, those pants are about as hip as a 5 year old needs to be. They are not exactly this old fashioned Nana’s first choice, but I do think she looks darling in these jeans.
Laurel loves them. She has never had a belt and cannot believe her good fortune in getting not only a belt but one in her favorite color.Â
The partnered shirt is a standard issue girls blank tee. The design is from Adorable Ideas French Curve Connection, a very useful and versatile collection of swirls. 
Each design is offered in straight outline stitch, chain stitch or satin stitch. Since the jeans’ swirls were chain stitch swirls, I was able to replicate the design pretty closely, especially since one design was on the back and the other on the front. No one can see the two at the same time, so I felt certain the minor discrepancies would go unnoticed. The “L” is from one of the alphabets in my PE-Design.
I enjoyed playing with the variegated thread. The pattern in the jeans embroidery consists of colored lines of chain stitches in green, blue and pink. The French Curve Connection designs are all monotone. So with BuzzEdit2, I isolated the swirls and inserted color stops. Using different variegated thread in each of those color stops  made the changes less noticeable. It also made the design flow more gently than if solid colors had been used in each of the swirls.
This was fun to make, but I am happy to be back to smocking a bishop nightgown for her. That’s where my comfort zone is.
Adding the hot-fix jewels made the contrived match of the two embroideries more convincing. But mostly it was done to please Laurel who loves glitz as much as any little girl.
