Friday, July 25, 2014

KCW Days 1-4: Adelaide's Wild and Free Geranium Dress

kid's clothes week



The first thing that came to mind for me when I learned that this week's theme is "Kid Art" was letting Adelaide loose with some fabric paint. She gets some art project fun, I get some adorable hand-painted fabric, and we get to collaborate on making something in the sewing room. Win, win, win.



She did an awesome job with her fabric painting (no bias here, nope, not at all). There was no end project in mind when I doled out the materials. I picked this mystery fabric out of the remnant bin at JoAnn Fabrics ages ago. It's got a linen-ish thing going on, but I don't know what it actually is. Looking at my stash, this is what seemed best suited for a three-year-old's experimental fabric painting. I really let Adelaide do her own thing with the fabric paint, though I tried to keep about three colors in her tray at a time to avoid having everything turn to brown from overenthusiastic color mixing. 


Her finished piece definitely had a border-print vibe, and my mind went straight to the Geranium Dress pattern. I asked her what she wanted to make with the fabric, and she didn't know, so I made the suggestion and she agreed. 


The bodice is some chambray from another project. It happened to match some of the paint perfectly.


Adelaide even picked the buttons herself.



As I've mentioned here before, Adelaide isn't one for fussy clothes. I have to make a real effort to not treat something like this too preciously or she will NEVER wear it. I have to check myself: what is the point of a kid having clothes if I'm going to get bent out of shape when they get grass stains or ice cream on them? I'd a million times rather her wear something lovely and stain it (or rip it) than never wear it. She's my rough-and-tumble, garden-loving girl, so if she can't wear something for all that entails, it's not worth making. 

So here she is, watering the garden in her brand new dress. Perfectly Adelaide.

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