Rocket dress

Well, ice cream dress:

But with the name of the pattern and the proportions of the colour blocks, I couldn't get this out of my head:

Add into the mix that L came to the fabric shop with me and, well, I let the loudness take over. It's probably a bit silly but hey, she's only five and the colours are on trend, right? (That's surely why they were in my head in the first place, ahem).  To be honest it's this kind of thing that makes me love having a creative outlet. Once you get to be a grown up, there aren't that many opportunities left to think things like "hey, 'ice cream dress' pattern - I know, let's make a dress THAT LOOKS LIKE AN ICE CREAM."

Anyway, this pattern came together relatively easily but made me feel like I was learning something at the same time. It wasn't particularly quick to do because it's detailed, but Oliver+S has a reputation for clear instructions, and they are. They only real fiddle I had was attaching the yoke to the dress back, and I fudged it a bit and then covered it up with a bar tack to hold everything where it should be.

L loves it. And I almost get teary at these birthday pictures of her wearing it.

At Antwerp zoo

iphone photo by her uncle, my brother in law Kris

Aside: I'm pretty proud of the cake too. She had been requesting a pink strawberry cake since the day after her previous birthday, and, with a bit of help from smitten kitchen, I delivered. Insert smug mum emoticon here.