Louisa the third

One of the best things about being able to sew is that I can make exactly what my daughters want. Well, my little girlie does not have any say in what she wears at present, however her older sister can be tricky to please. R has very strong likes and dislikes. When it comes to clothing, she wears her favourites until they are way too small.

The Louisa dress* is one of R's favourites. As soon as she grows out of one, she asks for another. I have already made two Louisa dresses for her (see HERE and HERE). A few months ago R requested a new 'dress with a big pocket at the front'. I knew exactly what dress she was talking about. While she was sleeping I made a new Louisa dress for my sweet R from fabric she chose herself.

R accessorised her new Louisa dress in a way only a five year old can pull off.

Fashion designers and editors, take note. This season one has to have a hairband and fairy wings, and it might be a crime against fashion to be seen without a feather. You have got to have a feather! 

Are you wondering how on earth I could let my daughter accessorise in this manner? Well, the truth is, it was my husband. Baby L and I had to go out and I left R and her daddy to do the photo shoot. When I came back she was happily playing with cars in our garage. When I asked my husband how the photo shoot went, he said it was 'interesting'. I was not sure what to think about his response until he showed me the photos.

My husband and I giggled so much looking through the photos! There were surprisingly a lot of photos of R looking towards the camera. So if you have a reluctant model, like my sweet R, listen up. This is how you get your kiddo to look at the camera and smile. Ready?.. You ask them to pretend to be a dinosaur! Roar! Success!! Roaring success even hehe

To be honest I considered doing one more photo shoot. Without super fashionable accessories. Maybe get a couple of Pinterest worthy pics, you know. I only considered that for a second. This is real guys. As real as it gets. This is what my girlie is like in real life. She is fun. She is obsessed with dinosaurs. She has rosy cheeks and messy hair from running around. She might not always present Pinterest worthy, but to me she is always perfect. With a headband pulled as low as her ears would allow, fairy wings and a feather.

R's new Louisa dress is made from quilting cotton I purchased at Spotlight about three years ago. The print is rather simple, but I just love it. So does R. I initially wanted to make a version with inserts at the back, but I didn't have anything that would look nice paired up with this fabric. It's OK though. Sometimes simple is best and less is more, right? I made piping from store bought bias tape. R picked buttons for the pocket. Just like for my very first Louisa, I used short sleeve pattern pieces from the Mara blouse pattern*, just subtracted the seam allowance and cut them on fold. This dress is size 4 around the chest with size 5 length.

I cut the pieces out late at night and did not realise the print was slightly off centre until half the dress was already made. My sewing ODD kicked in and I could not look at the dress without seeing how off centre it was. I even considered starting again! Thankfully a few of my sewing buddies convinced me that no one would notice my mistake once the dress is on a child who is running and jumping around. They were right! Thank you ladies :)

Before I installed the zipper I watched this free mini-class on Craftsy and realised that I have been making things more complicated than they needed to be. You see, my machine has one zipper foot. It looks like a regular zipper foot but has these funny little grooves and a hole in the middle. I never got curious what they were for until I watched this class. All this time I actually had a specialised invisible zipper foot, and I never realised that! My world has been revolutionised! I want to sew invisible zippers into every outfit now.

I am sure R will ask for a new Louisa dress once it gets cooler. I am already curious what accessories she will choose to go with it!


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