A Valentine's Day Tea Party

Tadah released their Tea Party Dress last summer, and I've been wanting to make E one ever since. It has so many neckline and back options! My favorite has always been the boat neck with scoop back, which is what I made here...

It's a pink with gold heart cotton from JoAnn's. I chose the circle skirt option which takes a bit more fabric from the straight skirt, but I think the circle skirt makes for a sweater twirl :)

The skirt is actually supposed to be about 4" longer, but before I put the skirt together, E took a safety scissors to the front pattern piece. Sigh. I know, I know. After several talks with her, I am going to be positively hopeful that she will be more careful with what fabric she plays with. I like curating her creative side, but she also needs to learn what fabric (aka scraps) she is allowed to play with. I love watching her cut and "sew" dresses for me, her daddy, friends and cousins, but in this case, I do wish the skirt could have been the original length :) 

Instead, E has a fun, casual tunic for Valentine's Day!

Happy Love Day!

Magrath Tunic {Testing}

Sew Much Ado just released her latest pattern... 

The Magrath Dress and Tunic

This was the second version I made during testing week. I'll post the other one next week sometime!

(Link to my dress post!)

View-A Tunic with 3/4 Sleeves

18-24 month width with 1-1/2" added to the length of the bodice and size 3 length of skirt 

The yellow was a remnant in my stash (probably JoAnns), and I had just recently purchased a yard of the border print from my local quilt shop - they send out coupons during your birthday month (ahem, January). It is a batik by Alison Glass. Abby decided to add the tunic length early on during testing week, and I was so thankful... I don't think I could have squeezed out a full dress out of the border print, but I really wanted to use it! Tunic length to the rescue :)

The pink exposed zipper brings out the pink flowers for a fantastic pop in the back! Abby's instructions are wonderful - there is no reason to be scared of this zipper! Really, this will probably be the easiest zipper you ever put into a lined bodice of a dress :)

I added the buttons because the solid yellow bodice looked just a little too plain. E had fun playing with my button jars; I don't take them out as often anymore with a little 9 month old crawling around! To be honest, I keep envisioning making this dress using eyelets in the bodice to make it look like a corset... wouldn't that be so sweet?

Our weather was horrible during testing week... cold, windy a little snowy but still there was ugly brown grass everywhere. Sigh. I love our Midwestern winters, I do, but they are just not conducive to photo shoots of spring and summer outfits! So, it was time to put up our wooden backdrop in the sitting area next to our large window. I'm still not super pleased with the pictures, but hopefully you can see that it really is such a sweet pattern!

Again, Abby has put together a wonderfully versatile pattern. It was released today! Go check it out!!! (Link)