A Very Go To Christmas - Sewing Pattern Review and A Giveaway!

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of sewing up the Sweetheart Dress by Luvinthemommyhood.   I've been wanting to give it a go for a while and of course this means I waited until nearly Winter to sew a fairly Summery dress.  Nothing that a Christmas fabric, cute cardigan, and tights can't fix however!

 

 She's usually a very happy model but something about this day just wasn't working for her. Maybe the fact that she was getting blinded by the sun??

 The pattern came together really well.  The instructions, and photos were clear and I think the entire dress took me under 2 hours to sew.  Including numerous kiddo interruptions!  My favorite part of the pattern was how well the photos described the steps.  Often times I get completely confused when a pattern gives directions but the photos seem to show something else.

 

I had a bit of trouble getting the back of the dress, the heart cutout, just right but I figured out pretty quickly that I made a small cutting error.  Next time I'll know better.  I have a feeling Ara will have a few more of these dresses come next Spring/Summer.  Especially in some pretty lighter fabrics.  This will be Ara's Christmas dress, I'm a little obsessed with plaids and I think in the past year I've gone through a good 4 yards of this fabric?  It's almost totally gone now though!

 

One of my favorite parts of this dress is the skirt on it..  It's so full and fun and it went on so easily!  I love Shannon's instructions and method for attaching the skirt to the bodice and I have a feeling I'll do all my dresses that way from now on.

This isn't the only sewing pattern of Shannon's that I've used and I'm a huge fan of her Commuter Cowl pattern as well.  I swear she takes all those amazing ideas that are so tricky and has a way of figuring out how it's done that I just can't!  Thanks for taking all the hard work out of it Shannon!

Don't forget to check out The Train To Crazy to see all the Very Go To Christmas posts.  There should be some pretty great patterns reviewed!
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Please note that the opinions of this post are totally mine and I was not compensated at all for writing it.  I did however receive the sewing pattern free.

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A Couple of Dragons and Minnie Mouse

I managed to get all three kids' costumes made again this year.  I'm really happy with the results but I won't lie, there were some frustrating moments getting them made!  Especially those dragon wings...

I had an idea in mind of how I wanted the costumes to turn out.  They needed to be either really warm (we had snow, cold wind and -7 Celsius last night for trick or treating) or able to fit over their snow pants and jackets.  I decided to piece together their costumes from a few different tutorials.  I wanted them to have a hat that was warm and they would could still use for the rest of Winter, so I used the Warm Winter Hat Pattern from From An Igloo

For the wings I used  the Dragon Wings Tutorial from I'm Feeling Crafty The tutorial was well done but I just got to say those wire hangers made my life difficult for a while!!

For the tails I used the Dinosaur Tail Tutorial from Running With Scissors.  I have actually wanted to make these tails for a while, just for fun so it was a perfect opportunity to make them.  This tutorial is so easy and I think after the first one the second took me maybe 20 minutes from start to finish?  Easy!

Ara wanted to be Minnie Mouse which was great, because how easy is that?  I made her some fleece leggings, just using a pair of leggings that fit her well as a pattern.  I just wanted her to be able to wear really warm pants and not have to wear snow pants so that worked well.  I also made her skirt fleece lined.  No tutorial or pattern for that, just my own skirt pattern.  The skirt is huge so hopefully it fits her for a long time yet.
The ears are just stiff felt glued onto a black headband and I made the bow from the same fabric as the skirt.  Also easy peasy!

What did your kids go as for Halloween?  Did you make their costumes or buy them?