she wore blue velvet...

So, now for those Christmas dresses.  

There's nothing like deep blue velvet and white lace.

And how about matching ruffled eyelet pantaloons?

I love it!

With plenty of "spin".

And some flowers of course.

Coordinating hair bows are a must.

Who knew having little girls to dress up could be so much more fun than dressing myself ever was?!

I've had an idea for little matching dresses ever since Joy was born.  It's just never happened before.  However, I happened to be near the fabric store one day a few weeks before Christmas, without children, and I happened to have a coupon, so I bought an armful of fabric and lace, and came home and got to work.
Like I said, I've had an idea and a few sketches for several years now.  I spent a morning drafting the patterns, and then started on the dresses while the kids spent the afternoon at a friend's house.  Another couple nights of staying up til 2am, and they were done!  They really were fairly simple patterns, it's just the material and lace that dress them up so much.  I think the pants took more time than either dress (not counting those hems - I think they're a mile around, altogether!)

I have to say that the evening is my favorite sewing time.  It's so quiet and peaceful after the kids are in bed and the kitchen cleaned up.  And it's such a nice big piece of time - no thinking in the back of my mind "do I really want to start this and then have to clean it up in an hour?", no rushing to finish something before somebody wakes up, or needs something...  Just a big, lovely, quiet time to do whatever I feel like doing.  I do start to get a little tired around midnight, but then I think of Declan's 2am feeding, and decide I might as well stay up until then, and usually get a second wind.
Of course, the next morning can be difficult.  Which is why God made coffee, I'm pretty sure.

But back to Christmas outfits.  Once those dresses were done I found a little blue velveteen outfit that Declan could wear, and then I didn't want to leave James out, so the morning before we left for our trip up north for Christmas I decided to make James a little matching tie.  It was so easy!  I just used one that he already had for a rough size estimate, and this tutorial.  I'll be making him some more in the pretty near future, I do believe.

I love this crew!

If you're interested in my patterns for the dresses, just let me know and I'll see if I can put something together to share.