As quilting daughter, Stephanie, and engineering son, Bubba, were growing up, each year for Christmas they got some handmade gifts - at least two.
One was a pair of pajamas to wear the night before Christmas (so we would have great Christmas morning pictures) and the other was a special Christmas outfit.
For Bubba, it usually meant a vest or shirt (I wasn't too excited about making pants), and for Stephanie, it was a dress.
As she got a little older, she became involved in choosing the fabric and design for the dress. And then one year, she surprised me.
She chose the pattern and then couldn't decide which fabric she wanted for the dress.
Her final suggestion - "use them all."
And what a fun suggestion it turned out to be.
Fortunately there were several Christmas prints in my stash leftover from the Christmas tree skirt I had made (and, well, other Christmas projects as well).
So, I took the assortment of fabric, cut 2-1/2 inch strips and started sewing the strips together. Looking at the dress patterns, I created "fabric" that was large enough to cut each of the patterns out.
Then I sewed it together, just as you would sew a dress.
Once it was almost finished, I realized that it was mighty busy for darling daughter, Stephanie. And we decided to add a large white collar and apron.
No attempt was made to match the fabric at the seams, making it somewhat easier to sew together.
This was one of my favorite Christmas outfits (sorry, Bubba!) and one of Stephanie's teachers asked if she could borrow the dress for her daughter a couple of years later.
It always seems kind of too bad when dresses can only be worn one year (or less) as kids grow up, so I was most happy to have someone else enjoy the dress.
And who knows, maybe someday I'll see a granddaughter wearing the dress! (It's a few years off, though.)
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Stephanie's Christmas dress |
Happy Quilting!
Penny Halgren
Master Quilter
