So, I was telling Christian the other day that when I found out baby #2 was a girl I was undecided about how I felt about matching clothes.  I suppose that I have decided.

I think they are so cute when they are all matchy AND it is easy to make clothes for them assembly-line style.  Making one thing is just as easy as making two.

I’ve got several Christmas related items I wanted to share and I thought I would start with the outfits I’ve made for the girls for Christmas this year.

First up, the other side of their reversible holiday dresses.  (I told you all earlier about the Thanksgiving side.)  The Christmas side is made with this cute, tiny, red and white stripe.  Don’t look at it too long because it does weird things to the eyes! But it was perfect to go with the little Christmas Tree applique.  (Sorry for the wrinkles.  I did iron it, but not to Christian’s satisfaction.)

I wasn’t thrilled with the green button choices, so I decided to do bows at the shoulders.  BUT I didn’t want the bows on the underside of the dress when they wore the Thanksgiving side, so the bows needed to be removable.  So, I created little snap button bows.

What I did:

• Installed the “female” side of the snap on the dress (I sewed the button for the Thanksgiving side over the backside of the button on the other side of the flap.)
• Made a bow the size and shape I wanted, except for the center band.
• Next, I measured around the center for that center band, heat sealed the ends and installed the “male” side of the snap on the end of the center band.
• I hot glued the center band on, carefully making sure the snap lined up directly on the back side of the bow.
• To attach, I simply open the button hole over the snap and snap the bow in place.  You could also snap the bows on and then put them through the button holes like they were actually buttons.

And that’s it…I was worried that it might be impossible, but it turned out to be really easy.

Cuteness in line to see Santa…they liked that part of the experience anyways!

The other thing I made were these cute Christmas t-shirts.

I just took ribbon and sewed it on to a plain whit t-shirt (or onesie)  in flaps to look like a Christmas tree, with a bow on top.  So, easy and very cute.  This is a great bang for your buck project and it only takes about an hour or so.

And…because those were so easy I needed to complicate things and make some pants.

I found this red gabardine in the remnant pile at Joann.  It was 7/8 of yard and $2.18.  I bought it not knowing exactly what I would make, but it was such a great shade of red I couldn’t pass it up.  When I got home I discovered that it was wider than the standard 44 inches.  Perfect!  Now I could make two of whatever I decided upon.

Since it is sort of Winter I figured pants would be best, but I wanted to make them cuter than normal.  I went with this pants pattern for Dinah, but I added a little one inch ruffle at the cuffs.

For Esther I was on my own.  I found several free pants patterns for babies, but I didn’t like how voluminous they all were.  I wanted her pants to be a bit more fitted, so I had to draft my own.  Working from an old See & Sew pattern that I had and a pair of pants already in her drawer I drafted up a pattern.  Unfortunately, when I tested the pants before I did the waist I found that I did it wrong and there just wasn’t enough room in the rear for her cloth diapered fluffy butt.  Christian suggested a butt panel and I went back into my sweat shop and took a seam ripper to her pants.  I inserted a couple triangle panels in the back center and that did the trick!  You can’t even really tell.

The girls are wearing their new outfits tomorrow when we go to decorate gingerbread men with their Auntie and Uncle, so I’ll get some good Christmasy pictures of them then.

Up next: Christmas Crafts and decorations!

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