A is for Alphabet Dress

Preschool rocks.  I wish I could go to preschool.  Potato prints, seed sprouting, snacks, built-in friends, hand painting, paper cutting, using brads to make moveable paper parts: pretty much a miniature utopia right there.  When Divine and Pearl were preschool age, I decided that they didn't need it.  I thought that I wanted to spend as much time with them before I sent them off to be schoolgirls.  They were fine, I was fine, they do marvelously in school.  But. (you knew that was coming)  Some personalities just crave social settings.  Clover adores having "assignments" and going to school.  

When my mom and I dropped her off the first day, it was like she was vacuum sucked into the room, already beginning her chatter to her teacher about the apple she decorated.  All the preschoolers were given a paper apple to decorate.  Clover got the red and green markers out, used both.  I thought she was finished, but then she came to me and said, next I need the glitter and the feathers.  That girl.  Is she her mama's detail girl or what.  Unfortunately we didn't have feathers, but fortunately I made good on the glitter.

Each week they focus on a different letter.  And because I love a good theme (oh, how I adore a good sewing theme), we're going to alphabetize-up her wardrobe each week to reflect the letter.  Am I going to have more fun than she is?

YOU BET!

Oliver + S just came out with their Fall line of patterns and you're going to see them pop up here (they have a new boy one!), but I started with the Book Report Dress for Clover's A is for Alphabet dress, and it's relatively simple (rated 2 out of 4 scissors).

I really love how Liesl adds the fun details to her creations:

The curved hemline, the pleats in the front (and the back, but somehow I failed to get a photo of the back before scooting her off to school!), the bias button loops, the front invisible kangaroo pockets (like the ones on Pearl's shorts!).  The front pleats looked so neat and tidy with the stitching that I left it in instead of just basting.  I added piping between the two colors because I just can't help myself.  

A little hint: if you want to add piping, add it to the bottom half before you do your pockets.

I almost couldn't bring myself to cutting these cornflower blue antique glass buttons off the card. Almost.

As non-committal as I am, this is going to be huge to get through the whole alphabet, but I think it will also help Clover to get excited about her letters.

Any suggestions for letters B-Z?  :)