Navy and Gold

If you were worried that C's holiday dress was going to be yet another Hanami, let me assure you that I did the unthinkable and actually tried a new pattern.  Crazy, I know.  Well, not that crazy, because it's another Straight Grain pattern - the Jaanu Dress - which I can now declare is as lovely as the Hanami.  When thinking about making a dress for C, I knew that I wanted it to coordinate with her sister's, but I also didn't want them to be too matchy-matchy.  After digging through my stash I settled on using some gorgeous navy blue silk-cotton fabric for the main fabric and then making some gold and cream piping out of scraps left over from O's dress.

Two things about this plan:

1) I had to go through a mourning process in using this fabric for the dress because I so wanted to use it on something for myself.

2) I was really worried that C would not be into such an "understated" dress.  I mean, she's the kid who wants gold and silver and pink and glitter on everything.   Would she absolutely refuse to wear a navy blue dress?

Well, I'm happy to report that that wasn't not the case, but mostly because I sewed some little gold buttons at the end of each pleat and I think that the added sparkle helped her fall in love with the dress.  It was touch and go there for a little while though.

As for the pattern, I cut out a size three based on the size recommendations and the fit appears to be right on.  The pattern comes with two dress versions and after much hemming and hawing I chose to make the Norah version because of those awesome pleats.  I'm excited to try the pattern in the future with fabric that has even more body to see just how big and beautiful those pleats can be.

Now If you'll allow me a moment of indulgence, here are the two little ones together in all their glory.  Let's pretend that they're this sweet to each other all the time.  Also, let's pretend that O doesn't make this face at us at least once a day.