Birthday Hippo Dress

I'm a little belated in posting this, since I made this dress for the Big Bub's birthday in December! Eh eh, tardy as usual.

The Big Bub has been completely head-over-heels crazy about hippos since she was given a security blanket in the shape of one, when she was a wee thing. They're inseparable now, Hippo and she. He's even more precious to her than Mummy or Papa are!

I looked for ages for cute hippo fabric for the dress until I came across this Japanese linen. Not knowing what colour she would like, I bought half yards of pink, yellow and blue. Only the blue has been made up so far, though :)

I traced this off one of her existing dresses, adding a bit of ease to the sides because I was lazy to sew in a zipper. Come on, it's a lined dress (since I was afraid the linen would be scratchy) and I didn't want to deal with zipping up two layers! I think it was rather too much ease though, since quite baggy around the sides. But oh well, I guess she'll just be able to wear it for longer.

I made it in a drop-waist style, just because I thought it'd be cute. She wore it on her birthday weekend and was pleased as pleased. So I'm happy my efforts were appreciated! One little step to getting my girls to appreciate handmade (an uphill task considering the pervasive consumerist culture and easy availability of cheap stuff in these parts!).

Fabric:

1/2 yard of hippo print japanese linen. 1/2 yard of fine-wale corduroy, 3/4 metre of velvet ribbon, 2 vintage red buttons, 1/2 yard acetate lining, all from the stash. I have a serious problem with the size of my stash.