Holiday Outfit

This is the outfit that I made for Little Sister to wear on Christmas Eve, when we go to church and have all of our family over to our house for a Dungeness Crab feast and presents.  She refused to wear the blouse though, instead choosing a red turtleneck, which was a pretty cute outfit too, I have to hand it to her, so I let her win.

But eventually I got her to put on the full outfit (on New Years' Eve) so I could snap some photos, and it came together just how I pictured it.

The blouse is the Cece Top from Popolok Designs.  I got to be a pattern tester for this pattern a while back, and I made the sleeveless dress version.  When Little Sister was her auntie's flower girl back in October, I had decided to make another Cece Dress, this time with sleeves, but once I had the top cut out I decided it was too formal for that wedding (I decided to make the Leah dress from Craftiness is not Optional instead).  I finished the peplum top version, with short sleeves and a peter pan collar, in time for the holidays.

The gold-flecked tweed remnant I used to make the skirt had been in my stash for a while, and I just loved how it went with the shimmery gold blouse.

fabrics and trim

 I used the Milkmaid Skirt tutorial from Crafterhours, which I had made for Little Sister once before and the grown-up version for myself several times.  On this one, I added black piping to the pockets and some pretty ribbon trim to the hem (leftover from another skirt I made for myself).

tucked in to show off the skirt

We topped it off with a hand-me-down black cardi, some sparkly tights, the headband I made for the flower girl outfit, and since we weren't actually leaving the house, some black ballet slippers.  Pretty sweet little outfit!

When I made the top, I was trying to keep things easy on myself, so I skipped the invisible zipper, and just did a button-and-loop closure using the same method described in the Leah dress tutorial I had used before.

But this blouse is more fitted than the Leah dress, so it is a bit of a tight squeeze getting it on and off, even though it fits great once it's on her (I cut out the 3T, which is what she's mostly wearing in store-bought right now).  I also cut the peter pan collar smaller than the pattern, and it flips up a little--I might try topstitching it down so it lays a little better.  One of the things I love about this fabric is that the backside is not shimmery, so I can use it for a nice subtle contrast.  I used the backside for the collar and the bias trim that I made.

Once she had it on, she decided she liked it after all, so maybe we'll have some occasion where she can wear it even though it didn't make a holiday appearance this year.

Or maybe not--you never can tell with this girl!