This is a sweet dress I made a while ago for one of Elena’s friends. It has been received, so now I can write about it!

Dear little Ra-ra lives on the other side of the world but she’s very present in Elena’s daily life. At least a few times a week Elena crawls into bed with us in the morning and asks if we have any new pictures of Ra-ra. ‘Ra-ra photo? Ra-ra, Mummy, Ra-ra?’. Very sweet, but also somewhat heartbreaking since it’s mighty hard for our two families to catch up.

Ra-ra turned two recently, so I decided to sew her something. I have had this pattern – the oliver + s birthday party dress –  sitting on my bookshelf for months. As is usual for oliver + s, this one was very well written and came together pretty easily (much more easily than I thought it would, actually). It is rated three out of four scissors for difficulty, so probably not a project to start out on. Attaching the hem facing was a little tricky but a quick check of the oliver + s forums sorted me out. I just hadn’t been picturing the way the whole thing would fold together. Sometimes my spatial awareness is lacking!

I caused myself a bit of grief by making all the pattern markings with an air erasable marker and then getting distracted for a number of days (the marker disappears after 48 hours), but that was just optimism mixed with stupidity on my behalf!

I made the size 2T, with no alterations.

Because the dress was headed to the northern hemisphere and winter, I made it out of corduroy. The pattern recommends light to medium-weight fabrics (which cord is not…), so I made the facings out of a cotton to reduce bulk. I decided to go with a bit of a geometric print for the facing because I thought Ra-ra’s mother would like it, and chose yellow buttons because I’m slightly obsessed with them at the moment. Plus, the present I sent off last year also had yellow buttons and I thought it was a nice note of continuity. I sewed up the back of the box pleats to keep them in place and make ironing easier.

I couldn’t help but try the dress on Elena one morning. It’s pretty cute, I think, despite the fact that she wouldn’t stand still for me. Wearing Ra-ra’s dress was just too exciting. I can see more of these in my future…and next time I won’t mark everything in erasable marker!