Strawberry Picking Attire

Pictures galore. These were taken over the course of two days and three different places because I just couldn't stop myself! There, I apologized in advance so now I can feel a bit better.









Dancing a little Irish jig, yep she knows her heritage well.







C showing the necessity of bloomers









K after the parade playing in a field. Is it just me or does anyone else hear 'The Sound Of Music' looking at these photographs?











Playing/snacking at school (we still go there once a week even though school is out)















Well, after what felt like an eternity Strawberry season finally graced us.
We made plans, months ago, with some of our friends to go picking and I knew that my girls needed, ok I needed, dresses just for the occasion. I knew just how I wanted to make them, and what fabric to use. You see, I had these dresses in my head ever since last summer when I came across some vintage sheets at our local thrift store (which, funny enough, a set just like them appeared on Meg's blog in a sponsor giveaway the other week). Unfortunately morning sickness wiped out any sewing ambitions I had that summer so I didn't get to make them. But boy was I chomping at the bit this spring to work on them. I sketched them out a couple of times first to see what colors I wanted for the apron and the top and then waited for a sale at Jo-Anns.

I made them with the same pattern I used for K's birthday dress last year, and the bloomers with my usual bloomer pattern. I chose to keep the bloomers simple and just a plain white this time around. My biggest sewing inspiration and wonderful friend Renee, who knows my taste oh so well, let me know about this adorable dress pattern last summer when I was searching and searching for cute yet modest dresses for the girls to wear. I am so happy that she did, as it is one of our favorites now. This is the first time I used it for C and I am happy with the results. I made C, who just turned 3, a size 4 (I prefer lots of growing room, plus it makes the dress length longer and more to my liking) and K, who is 5 1/2, a size 6, but with the length of a size 7 because my K is a tall, skinny string bean. Since my girls are always finding treasures everywhere they go I decided to add on a big pocket to the front of the apron. I hand embroidered some strawberries onto the pocket to make the apron just a little less plain. Overall, I am quite happy with how they turned out. I do have to admit it took me a short while to get used to the idea of them wearing sheets, but that was just a brief moment.

Here is the best part : Since I dropped a whopping two dollars for this full set of sheets, and about four dollars on the additional fabric for the apron, top and bloomers (thank you Jo-Ann sales!) the cost per dress works out to be around three dollars. I am still giddy over this as I type it. Now this, is my kind of sewing!

As for our strawberry picking adventures... well, that will just have to wait for another post this week. I think this one was long enough!

Oh and just in case you were wondering if Baby L was missing out on all the ocean fun...


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You still have a chance to enter to win three of Linda's great knitting patterns in the Mamma4earth giveaway.

Strawberry Picking Attire