I managed to finish one of the two bowling shirts for my son in time for it to be a Hanukkah gift. It matches his sister's new dress. This is the kids Bowling Shirt pattern by Scientific Seamstress that I've made a couple times before. This time I actually bothered to make button holes and put on buttons instead of my usual snaps. I figure he's a mature, nearly 5 1/2 year old now, so it was time for buttons. ;-)

One thing I love about this pattern is the number of variations to choose from. If you clicked through on my links above to the other two that I've made, you'll see that fabric placement has been different on all three. The next one I'll finish will be all one fabric (a 4th variation for me).

I opted for the size 5/6. I think this is a 19" length. I feel like he's swimming in it a little, but I like to err on the side of clothes being a little big at the start so there's room to grow. Especially for handmade clothing. I don't want them to outgrow something quickly that has taken me many hours to make.

Here's a shot of the kiddos together as we were out the door to celebrate Hanukkah at our synagogue.

I had meant to share a picture from Hanukkah in yesterday's post. Here's a glimpse of the hanukkiahs from our community. We had 972 candles total.

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I'm linking up to Adrienne's 2015 Q4 Finish Along post. See all my Q4 goals here.

At the beginning of December I showed you the many projects I was working on. I finished this dress for my daughter (and matching shirt for my son that I'll show you tomorrow) in time to give them as gifts for Hanukkah. The kids wore them for the last night of Hanukkah when we celebrated at our synagogue. While singing the Dreidel song she spun around (the whole time!) and the dress proved to be great for spinning. It has a really full skirt. I'm always amazed at how much fabric going into ruffled things. I think the dress I made for her first birthday took 2 yards of fabric.

This is the second time I made this pattern, the Jewel's Stripwork Dress by Create Kids Couture. The first one was in summer of 2014 and she's finally outgrown it. A few months ago when I was fabric shopping with the kids I had a plan to make a new version of this dress. My daughter picked out the baseball fabric and together we found the red to coordinate with it. The pattern goes together very easily. And even faster with just one fabric in the skirt portion. I made the 4T size this time (I think the last one was a 3T) and it's sure to fit her for quite some time.

Thanks for visiting!

I'm linking up to Adrienne's 2015 Q4 Finish Along post. See all my Q4 goals here.

My daughter picked out this crazy frog fabric on a summer shopping trip. I knew that I'd use it to make The Nelle dress, by Brownie Goose. I have made the BG Lazy Susan a couple times and wanted to try a different pattern. I will certainly be making more of these. The Nelle went together very quickly (though it would have been faster if I could have found my rolled hem foot for my machine!). I look forward to playing around with adding trim or using more than one fabric next time I make this dress. Perhaps it's finally time to cut up my coveted Tula purple raccoons to make her a dress. It's more likely I'll pick something else for the next one, but maybe the one after that. ;-)

This isn't exactly a winter dress, but we're in California, so throw on some leggings and a sweater and she could wear this now. It's also big enough that it will still fit her in Spring/Summer. To be honest, I kinda want one in my size (though maybe not this fabric). ;-)

I think this is a great beginner pattern with just one piece of elastic in casing and nothing too picky to fiddle with.

Thanks for visiting!

I'm linking up to Adrienne's 2015 Q4 Finish Along post. See all my Q4 goals here.