Library Wednesday

It's everyone's favorite day of the week, Wednesday!  This week's library theme was Bears, this was the dress Piper wore:

Oliver + S Badminton Dress

This was the first time making the Badminton Dress and I really enjoyed it.  It's very quick to come together and has some very cute design elements.  Like the flutter sleeve (which, I am not entirely certain I did correctly but it works so we'll go with it):

And, bow in the front:

Sometimes I let Zachary help me make design decisions.  He chose the green ribbon.  I like it, nice pop of color.

I used Kokka Trefle Cotton Gauze Forest in Pink for the main fabric and a brown cotton for the accent.  The Kokka Cotton Gauze was a delight to work with.  This was my first time using cotton gauze but not my last.  What a beautifully soft fabric.  I am sure Piper was super comfy wearing this dress.  Kokka is a japanese imported fabric, so this was a bit more expensive than a quilting cotton but totally worth it.  Piper even napped in the dress and didn't look too disheveled when she woke up.  Sometimes the quilting cotton dresses don't make it through the day before they are terribly wrinkled, not the case here.  The double gauze is quite thin and this was not the ideal weight fabric for a chilly day but paired with a long sleeve top, tights and boots I think Piper didn't mind too much.  This will be a wonderful dress to wear when the weather is warm.

One note on the dress pattern.  By doing french seams on the inside, I have no unfinished seams.  The top is bound by a bias trim, the sides are done with french seams and the bottom is hemmed.  I love a neatly finished dress on the inside, not that anyone will see it but I know.  Many Oliver + S patterns work well with french seams and many have very nice finishes inside as well as out.  Yet another reason why I am an O+S junkie! :)

Here's my model with one of her little friends, each with the pink bear they brought to library.  There were a lot of pink bears today:

I tried to get Piper to take a nice photo but most of them ended up looking like this:

3 is not the most cooperative age for photo taking.