Dressed in Sew Pony Sewing Contest

As our family has grown, the posts on my personal blog have become few and far between. For a time it was therapeutic for me; sewing took it's place. Missing writing, I'm taking a different approach, sharing my creative endeavors along with my motherhood experience. Doolittle Designs Co. comes from my childhood nickname(s), "Dusty Doolittle", "Doolittle", "Dusty-Doo" and "Doo".

I've been putting off the start for a while but I wanted to enter this sewing contest by Sew Pony and a dang deadline made me do it. I've been admiring the style of @kneesocksandgoldilocks on Instagram for quite some time. She and Suz at Sew Pony partnered on a new dress pattern, the Juliette Dress and Top, and I decided I need to have it in my pattern collection. I let Gracie pick her fabric from my stash, and she selected this Amy Butler for the dress and the purple dot fabric (I think from Joanns a few years ago) that matched for the collar. I'm trying so hard, and failing miserably, at plowing through my fabric on hand before buying any more.

We both love it.

 

The back has a button option as well, but since she got her hair caught in a button a few weeks back, we decided on the tie. 

Then she asked if she could climb a tree. Sure, it's totally a tree-climbing dress.

When Suz put out the free peter pan collar option for the Juliette Dress and Top, I knew I would love that even more. I had some Cotton + Steel fabric from their holiday collection. It's not really Christmas-y but up close it did remind me of vintage ornaments my mom inherited from her mother in law years ago.

 I decided to make one for each of the girls, because I'm crazy.

I'm not sure why I was drawn to the fabric but I thought it would be put to good use on this pattern. I wanted to do the collar in yellow but I couldn't find anything in the right shade locally and I didn't leave myself time to order online so I settled on this mint green that Gracie helped me find. Honestly, I don't LOVE my creation, yet. But, we're often our own worst critic and these kind of things always grow on me. It's better one dress at a time, it's a lot of print when you see it times three.

I just love her little snaggle-tooth smile.

Evie's little buck tooth grin is pretty sweet, too. This picture below reminds me of when there was only film, and you just had to get what you got. #sisters

It's funny how Gracie really owns the "big sister" role and how much Ash looks up to her when they're practically the same age.

When we moved into our home a year ago my sewing took a back seat to getting settled in. It also took a backseat to Baby #5. Now we're more than settled in, and Evie takes one nice long afternoon nap, so I've been sewing more over the last couple months. Wish me luck at my attempts to sew more over summer break. I have too many kids to make it easy!

That said, I was at Costco recently. Because I live there. I had the baby and the twins with me and just as I was starting to load the goods into my car a woman, I would guess in her early eighties, stopped and said, "You have such a beautiful family." Then Jay shouted, in his always enthusiastic voice, from the back, "Hey, you old grandma lady!" Thank God (because I wasn't sure if I should laugh or crawl into a hole and die) she replied, "That's right! I am an old grandma lady! I'm grandma Gigi. What's your name?" We chatted with her for a few minutes and as she walked away she turned back to me with a twinkle in her blue eyes and said, "You are RICH, honey. You have life's greatest riches."

Amen.

Until next time, love 

P.S. Let me know which dress is your fave-the ruffle collar or the peter pan collar?