Pocahontas

Although my quilting has been at a bit of a standstill for now, I have been busy sewing nonetheless.  With my much-needed cleaning of my sewing room recently (still no circle rotary cutter found – boo!)  I have unearthed, and tried to finish, several half-finished craft projects.

And so we come to Pocahontas x 2.  I purchased this great fringed brown suede fabric during the after-Halloween sales at Joann’s, and fully intended on having Native American costumes for my girls to wear for Thanksgiving.  You can never forget how much my girls like playing dress-up! (and yes, I also planned it for then because it would be a chance for me to show off both my adorable girls and my sewing skills in front of my family…)

Needless to say, the costumes weren’t finished for Thanksgiving.  I had them cut out but never managed to sew them.  But there is no time like the present (especially when the patterns are cut out and my girls are always growing – yikes!), and the dresses/costumes are now done and I took my two Pocahontases out to the park for some good old exploring yesterday.

By the way, you might notice that Pocahontases have a lot of stick gathering and poking to do.  Who knew?

Julia’s dress is New Look 6796 yet again.  You might remember this pattern previously with her pink sugar-skull dress, as seen here.  This Pocahontas costume is actually the third dress I’ve made with that pattern, and most likely won’t be the last.  It is easy and it is super-cute.  (I still need to show the 2nd time I made it — it’s coming, I swear!)

The ribbon at the bottom was applied with some Steam-a-Seam and then sewed down.  The dragonfly is a button just attached with a safety pin.

Elena’s dress is Simplicity 2677.  This was the first time I made this pattern and I was pleased.  Don’t be surprised if you see it again too.  Instead of making a fabric band & bow on the bodice as on the pattern, I used some Native-American-esque trim from Joann’s.  To stop the rampant fraying, I applied Fray Check to the cut ends and then also ironed it onto the dress with some Heat ‘n Bond Ultra (I know, different stuff than what I used on the other dress but I’m tricky like that), and sewed it down yet again.

My biggest problem with the dresses was getting good pictures of Elena in  hers!  Anyone know how to get a 4-year-old to smile prettily?  I’m totally serious here!  This is what I always get these days when I ask for a smile:

What’s with that tucked chin???  And then this is what I get when I ask her to look at me:

Um, okay.  (Julia’s helpfully showing her why I am – ha!)

Meanwhile, Julia was a perfect picture-taker yesterday.

But I soon stopped torturing the girls and just let them explore: