Sixth Birthday Dresses

I’ve gotten into the habit of making my granddaughters matching dresses for their birthdays. On occasion only the birthday girl has gotten a dress, like the year the youngest wanted a “pink princess dress”, and I only had a limited amount of the fancy, flower and sequin-encrusted tulle. The elder girl got a simpler outfit. But usually they get matching dresses. Sometimes the dresses have matched the theme of their party, and other times the girls have requested what they wanted.

This year when asked, the soon-to-be-six-year old said, “I like it when Grandma surprises us!” In the past they’ve sometimes drawn a picture of a dress that they want Grandma to make. Maybe six or eight months ago, they drew a picture of a dress with a tiered skirt in multiple colors, with ruffles at the shoulders in rainbow stripes. At the time, I didn’t have fabric that would work for that vision, and they kind of forgot about it.

Well, when I bought fabric for my second quilt, as a novice, I of course had no clue how much yardage to buy. (I like modern quilts, so I use yardage rather than charm packs or jelly rolls). Anyway, I had plenty of fabric left over from my quilt, and it kind of fit into the drawing they had made of the colorful tiered dress they wanted. So I got to work.

I used the Little Lizard King Aarhus Dress for the bodice, hacking it to have the Mackinac Island neckline in the front. Then I made up the tiered skirts, adding one and a half times the width for each successive tier. The size 6 dress had a skirt with tiers of two pieces at 5″x 21″, 6″x 31-1/2″, and 7-1/2″x 47″. The bottom tier has a bit more length since it is hemmed. The size 8 dress had tiers of two pieces at 6″x 21″, 7″x 32″, and 8-1/2″x 47″. The 8 year old is slim, so her bodice was size 7 width and 8 length. Honestly, she could have fit into the size 6 bodice.

The fabric is all by Tula Pink (Free Spirit Fabrics) except the lime green as the shop was out of that color. The lion print is called Good Hair Day, which I think is hilarious! Of course a beautiful lion’s mane would look good. So I just had to use the fabric selvedge to make my own tags for the dresses.

I used sections of the lion paw prints (that show all the colors used in the fabric print) for one side of the tags.

Then I used Good hair Day (the name of the print) on the other side of the tag. I used a Tula Pink print called Stargazer for the shoulder ruffles, elastic casing, and handmade piping.

Although it’s not a rainbow stripe, it does contain a rainbow of colors, so I figured it would be acceptable! 😉 The girls like the elasticated back so that they don’t have to deal with zippers or buttons when getting dressed.

I used 1-1/4″ strips of the Tula Pink Stargazer fabric to make the piping. I pressed the strips in half, and basted it to the bottom edge of the first two tiers. That way it was perfectly in place when I gathered the top of the next tier and stitched it to the tier above. I think it adds a nice pop of color.

The girls had so much fun playing with their friends, eating snacks and ice cream cake, and enjoying face painting (done by the eight year old with her fancy face painting kit). Grandma stayed nearby to rinse and sanitize each brush as it was used. The designs turned out super cute. She practiced the night before by painting flowers on Grandma, Mama, and sister. She even made a little sign listing the designs available. She was willing to be a little flexible when a couple of the boys at the party wanted 67 painted on their arms. 🙂

The morning had been nice and sunny, and the afternoon was sunny for a while. But then the rain moved in. Some people left, but you know kids, they don’t care if it’s raining, and continued on playing and running around.

Someone had a canopy in their vehicle, so the adults huddled under the canopy for a bit, trying to stay dry, while the kids had a blast running and jumping and continuing to play on the playground. Eventually the party came to an end, but my sweet girls still looked adorable in their (sopping wet) matching birthday dresses!

Being a Grandma is the best! And I love it when I can make my girls pretty and fun clothes.

The details: I used the Aarhus and Mackinac Island dress patterns from Little Lizard King as the base of the dresses.

I bought all the Tula Pink fabric from a very nice quilt shop in St. Petersburg, Florida called Whim So Doodle. All of the ladies who work there are so friendly and helpful. And they have the largest selection of Tula Pink fabric that I’ve seen in this area.

Thank you for reading and sharing my love of sewing, fabric, patterns, color, and making cute clothes for others. Since this is my blog and represents me, I always give my honest opinion about any patterns, fabric, or supplies that I talk about. I do like knowing whether the time I spend writing posts actually interests people enough that they take a look at the patterns I review, but I write for me. It’s one more creative pursuit that I hope is helpful or interesting to others. I write to share my love of sewing and to encourage others to love it as much as I do!