Olivia's New Spring Ensemble

My honorary niece Olivia has a third birthday coming up, and I felt such a special occasion required a dress and matching purse.

For a patter, I chose McCalls M7769, in the version on the left. It's a cute, light, wearable summer dress. I liked the idea of mixing cotton prints for it, but in the end decided to go with a single cotton print in a dragonfly pattern, as that was less expensive and less wasteful. This would be a good pattern to use up small amounts of coordinating cotton prints if you happen to have any on hand, though.

And here's the completed dress made in size 3, with a little purse I whipped up to go with it. The dress went together quite easily and I am very pleased with it. I had a small amount of green cotton on hand, so I used that for the exterior of the purse, lined it in the dragonfly print, and then used some grosgrain ribbon that I had on hand to make the drawstring and the rosette. A small green bead from my beading supplies added a nice finishing touch.

I am defintely looking forward to seeing Olivia open this gift. Though I suspect she'll be much more focused on the gift bag that this gift is to go in, since she is cat-obsessed and it has a photo of kittens on it, and the dollar store activity books and crayons that will also be in the bag, as she is about her new spring ensemble. Three-year-olds have their own priorities.