have i mentioned nora and etta are quite girly? well they are. i however am not. so it's a constant struggle to find fabrics that are sweet enough for them but not too saccharine for me.
when i saw this amy butler lark print at stonemountain & daughter i instantly knew two things: a) nora and etta would love wearing it and b) i wouldn't mind sewing it. so i picked up a few yards and waited for the right inspiration.
this is an older collection, but you can still find it online: here is that exact fabric from etsy and here is the reverse print from fabric.com
when inspiration did hit i decided to make the girls a variation on the bubble dress from oliver + s. after making the bodice i went to attach some piping to the bottom but something felt off. the bright white piping made the cream in the fabric look dirty and i just couldn't do something i knew wouldn't be perfect.
i like to think this resolve was because i was drinking a black rock porter from one of the best bars and breweries in the east bay which reminded me one should always strive for greatness in their chosen craft.
then i remembered this post on young house love (rest in peace you beautiful blog) where they 'antiqued' pillow cases by soaking them in tea. so i did what any logical person would do and spent hours researching and dyeing a $2 piece of fabric.
it took about $10 of genmaicha tea from berkeley bowl, several hours of interment tea boiling/ice bath soaking, and more mental bandwidth then i would care to admit, but in the end i had one and a half yards of piping that was a smidge darker than when i started. worth it.
i attached my freshly steeped piping to the bottom of the bodice and added a pleated 'off the pattern' skirt. not wanting to worry about matching colors for the buttons i decided to go contrasting used these mint ones from my stash, which i had gotten several months earlier at stonemountain & daughter.
the girls loved their new pink dresses. shocking i know.
but not as much as they love the goodies from portland's abundance of food trucks,
or channeling their inner arrested development character.
another example of why kids should always wear easily washable materials like cotton!
however somewhere along the way i became quite fond of this fabric and decided to use the rest of it to make myself a dress. details on that another day but here is the finished product:
