Library Dress

I've been working on making all my girls dresses. Once you make one for one, if she loves it, all the rest of them want one, too. It a good problem, I suppose. As long as they actually like them. They all have been growing anyway, and have needed new dresses. 

Right around the time I was dealing with loads of requests, Oliver and S had their annual summer sale, where patterns were half off. I love to stock up when they have good sales, so I asked the girls for their opinions on patterns, and two of them jumped at this library dress, which I just think is the cutest. I love the collar, the contrasting waist band, everything. It's been on my wishlist for a few years, but I wasn't sure if they would go for it. Luckily they did, and I bought it, along with the Terrace dress pattern and the simple shorts pattern, since I didn't have one and it's such a basic. 

ANYWAY, once my large format printings had arrived (PDF Plotting is fantastic; fast and very affordable), I got to making it. I let my daughter pick fabric from my closet, from a selection I was willing to use, and she picked the pretty blue linen and this adorable plaid. I believe it's a Kaffe Fassett plaid, but I'm not sure since I've had it for several years and, as a woven, it doesn't have info on the selvage. The linen came from Fabrics-store.com. I thought it was a perfect pairing and I absolutely love how it turned out. 

I also managed to find enough buttons leftover from something else, or rather, something that must not have gotten made, since I had so many, and I love the contrast. They're actually really obnoxiously cheap buttons from Joanns and I'm glad to be rid of them; I used some on a different project for my girls and one of the buttons on that project broke in half. And they don't have rounded edges, they just generally feel cheap. (Lesson learned: don't buy cheap buttons from Joanns, they'll definitely feel cheap!) However, they were perfect for this project.

This dress is currently my make that I'm most proud of. I just love how it turned out!