A Tree is Nice: Me!

First of all, Happy St. Patrick's day from my two Clovers!  I made sure that all my baby dills had a bit of green on before I sent them off to their pincer clad classmates.  Olive even put green rubber bands around her ears and called herself a leprechaun.  What joy to be a kid.

Second of all, I feel like a stranger on my own blog!  It's been such a treat to have all this creativity buzzing around with my guest seamstresses, hasn't it?  I'm glad to be here today, though.  It just happened to work out that my post today has everything to do with green.  Sometimes I'm lucky like that ;)


This is a book that was given to me by a dear friend from Dallas, back during our grad school days.  I would try to describe it, but some books just need to be experienced:  A Tree is Nice, by Janice May Udry.

Every page contains one of the virtues of trees.

All of which are very nice.

For my inspired project, I made Azure a tree-esque outfit.  I've been accused of making clothes that are impractical before.  I admit I enjoy doing the fancier, tailored type of clothes.  It's my preference, what can I say?  But every now and again I get a hankering for something playful and more casual.

I used my Divine Ruffled Bloomer tutorial but made a couple of changes.  I lengthened them as well as lined them with a matching shade of knit, since Azure likes to wear them as pants, not just under a dress or tunic.  Just cut out a second pair in the knit and sew them up as a single pair, with the knit layer lined up on the wrong side of the ruffled fabric.

The tree fabric is a sheer that I found in the home dec portion [I think it's a curtain fabric?] at a store in Japan.  Usually when working on a project I'm rather bored of the fabric I use by the time I finish.  This time around, though, I found myself falling more deeply in love with it.

Every other illustration is in color.  It makes me want to go by myself a hoe and a basket of flowers to hang in my tree.

My mom found these sheer embroidered leaves in Korea and gave me a branch worth.  I made a little pocket for acorn gathering.

I won't give away the fun little ending, but really, the whole book is delightful.

The top was made using an easy-peasy pattern, McCall's 3591, but I lined the bodice with a white knit and left the sleeves as a single layer of sheer.

It just might make you go out, climb a tree, give it a hug,

or maybe even a kiss!

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If you're a procrastinator like I am, take a look at Bloom's new shop, full of inexpensive St. Patty's day printables for cupcake toppers, wrappers, and scavenger hunt clues!  Your kids will think you rock.  Because you do.