4th of July Dresses

7.04.2011

I have never actually made 4th of July dresses before this year.  A few years back (2009) I made T-shirts for my girls (when there were just 2 girls).  And, of course the attempt to capture a decent photo of both girls looking at me was useless.  It went a little something like this...

Okay! Everyone look at me! (click) No! Look at ME! (click) Girls! (click) Say "Cheese!" (click) Say "Happy Birthday America!" (click) Show me the t-shirts! (click) No...look HERE! (click) Hold still! (click)(click)(click) ...Oh, forget it.

But months ago I saw this red, white and blue floral fabric and thought it would be perfect to make dresses.


Because there is always a lot of fun and activity on this holiday I wanted the girls to be comfortable so each of these dresses is made with a T-shirt top and a non-stretch, 100% cotton bottom.  I hadn't tried this method before and it was a snap!  I made all three dresses in about 2 hours.  Nice!


Each dress had a different ruffle element, which the girls loved.  Different, but matchy is big in this house.  The ruffles were made from the bottom portion of each t-shirt which was cut off after sewing it to the skirt.  Then I added a sash of red fabric covered in tiny white polka-dots. This is pretty much my favorite fabric ever....seriously I have about 10 yards of it.  It's a sickness.


Ella got a large ruffle around the neckline.  This was my Houdini move because the neckline of this shirt was all oddly flopsy and stretched out.  The ruffles covered it perfectly.


 
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Evangeline got three rows of small ruffles.  Actually this one was a cheat because her t-shirt came this way, but had large chocolate stains on the bottom half...now covered by skirt.  Perfect!

 
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 Bianca got one vertical ruffle.  Her skirt was sewn to an existing onesie.  I left the bottom half on hers so it can still be snapped between the legs.  I used the leftover material from Evangeline's shirt to make one ruffle straight down the front of Bianca's dress.
 

Hope you have a great 4th of July!


3 comments:

Marie said...

So cute! And triple bonus is that they are all looking at the camera! Happy 4th!

Jess@craftiness is not optional said...

ok how cute is Bianca? I mean all of them are, but I love babies gummy smiles! I think I have that same small red polka dot-from Joann's? I have a ton too and use it with everything! I wish I'd been on top of it this year and made them some outfits, but oh well! I love the different ruffles on each dress-perfect for sisters!

Jenn said...

Oh my goodness. I LOVE these dresses. Such a good idea for Bianca's dress... I wanna try that for Brynlee. You're stinkin' amazing. :)