Mermaid baby dress and leggings set

What little girl doesn't need a mermaid dress? Especially at the moment, is it just me or are mermaids definitely the on trend print right now? Not that I mind, Ariel always was my favorite Disney princess anyway.

This amazing fabric was from LLFab who design custom digital print jersey fabrics. Most of their stuff is done in 'runs' for pre-order so is only available for a limited period. To be honest I find that a little annoying, but I can understand from a home business owner thats the practical way to do things as you don't have the means to store endless runs of custom printed fabrics. This does however mean that sadly there isn't any more of this fabric to buy, though they have been known to do re-runs so do join the facebook group if you are interested.

The pattern is another one from Ottobre issue 4/2016. It is a lovely jersey tunic length dress with an integrated vest top underneath. I also made the matching leggings to go with it to make it a complete outfit. I really like tunic style dresses for babies as I never really liked the idea of babies in dresses (despite having sewn a few) as I always think by the time they get to crawling a dress must really get in the way under their knees.

My hope is that this dress will fit Miss Fox once the weather starts to get a bit cooler, though to be honest I'm finding it really hard to sew for her at the moment as I have no idea how big she is going to be. Having said that though I know I won't have any time to sew once she arrives so I am just trying to make the most of it and wing it a bit.

My binding went a lot better on this make as opposed to the kitty romper I last made. I made a couple of adjustments to the way I attached them this time. The first thing was to make sure I didn't stretch the fabric when overlocking and the second was to release the tension in my sewing machine when doing the top stitching, I think this made the biggest difference. Its very nice to have found the biggest cause of the problem though as it will vastly improve future projects. the neck isn't ideal but its ok. I definitely prefer adding a neck band as opposed to binding a neck, something to bear in mind.

I am not 100% sold on the mauve colour of the vest and leggings, It was an online purchase and I was hoping for more of a cadbury purple like the binding. The vest is less of an issue as once its on with some trousers you won't see it. I am hoping though that the colour grows on me more once its actually being worn by a tiny human. I'm sure she will be plenty cute enough to pull it off.

Have you ever bought any fabric from a custom designer? I would love to hear about them and how you found the fabric/service. Its definitely a perk of the digital age, especially in the UK where nice prints have historically been much harder to come by.

Liberty Milky Way Sweetheart Sun Dress

I don't even know where to begin with this post, this dress has me almost speechless. There are not enough words to describe how much I am in love with this little dress and just how proud I am of it. The dress is such a dainty little thing, sewn up in a beautiful lightweight cotton lawn in size 0-3 months, its just so delicate. 

Not only am I super chuffed with the final thing I just really enjoyed the whole process of making this. From the cutting out to the final bits of hand sewing the whole thing was a delight. It wasn't a fast project, but it wasn't too complicated either. I wanted to make sure that I took my time, and didnt make any silly mistakes. I think this was mostly down to fear of ruining the fabric but thats not a bad thing.

The fabric is some beautiful Liberty Tana Lawn in their new Milky Way pattern. I'm not really a fan of Liberty prints, they are a bit too dainty and floral for my liking, plus they cost an absolute fortune, but this one really caught my eye. Mr Fox thinks its a bit gawdy but I love it, what do you think?

I was hoping this would be a lovely little summer dress, but in reality I think by the time Little Miss Fox is big enough to wear it we will be coming on to winter, but she can pair it with a long sleeved vest and some leggings to keep her warm so we should still get plenty of wear out of it.

You need to think carefully about making baby clothes because they need to be made from a fabric which will be soft enough on baby's skin, but also breathable. This is why I knew I wanted to make a dress in a cotton lawn as its so soft and lightweight. The fabric really was beautiful to sew with, it behaved spectacularly well, cottons usually do, but I was expected a lightweight lawn to be a bit more temperamental. Who knows, maybe this will be the start of a new found love for Liberty fabrics??!!

The sewing pattern is another gem from Puperita and it is the Sweetheart dress. It comes with 2 options, one with a skirt and this one without which is a bit more tunic style. Puperita do a few lovely dress patterns but I wanted one which was very simple to really showcase the fabric pattern which is why I chose the plain tunic version of the dress. The dainty flutter sleeves compliment the fabric perfectly and I think this was a great pattern choice for this fabric. As always the instructions were spot on and this was a really nice simple pattern to make.

I hope you love this as much as I do! I could just stare at it all day, is that weird?

So if you have any recommendations for me, of any of your favourite girl sewing patterns or places to buy cute baby fabrics I would really like to hear from you. You can never get enough inspiration and the sewing community is my favorite place to find it.

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