a 'new' 'old' dress

I think Wren is as excited as I am about this sweet floral cotton hand-me-down from Luke's side of the family.  It's another one that at least two of her aunts (probably 3) wore a couple of decades ago.  It's certainly hand-made, and I'm guessing that it's another dress that Luke's grandmother made for the girls.

I absolutely adore the 3 tucks across the bodice and the gathers (though the tucks were hard to photograph with this active little model).  

I decided to make a few alterations to the dress once I had a chance to try it on Wren.  The original collar was one of those white deals with the lace embellishment.  What exactly are they called?  Peter Pan collars?  Double Yoke collars?  Regardless, I decided to remove that collar altogether and widen the neck hole a bit, then I simply sewed red binding around the raw edges.  I also decided to take the elastic out of the arm holes to give her more room to move about.  There was a lace trim along the hem of each sleeve, but I opted to remove that as well.  One look at the hem and you can tell that the length has been adjusted several times.  I actually decided to keep the hem short, so she can wear it like a shirt tunic instead of a dress.  But I left the extra fabric there so we have the option to lengthen it again should we choose.

It's probably a bit silly, how excited I get about stuff like this.  I've been very busy sewing lately, squirreling away some sweet baby items for the wee one (who will likely arrive within the next month!).  But I'm happy to be finding the time to work on little projects like this dress that I'd like to get to before the baby and the move.

A fox-sibling for Wren's new sibling!

And just for fun, a photo that Wren herself took of the daffodils that a vendor at a flea market gave to her yesterday.  She asked me if she could bring them home to "can them", so we found them a nice Ball jar.