Rainbow Party Project #5: Rainbow Clothes for the Other Kid

To get dressed this morning, Sydney first picked out the perfect pair of tights--orange, with flowers. Then she dug through her drawer until she found the perfect pair of underpants--blue, with a sparkly pink waistband. She dug through her pants drawer for a while, but not finding anything that suited her, she instead dug through the clean laundry until she found the perfect skirt--a striped Momma-made sweater skirt. Then she dug and dug through her shirts drawer, rejecting many possibilities, until she found the perfect shirt--white pajama shirt with a penguin on it.

To get dressed this morning, Willow pulled out the topmost pair of underpants from her drawer--purple camouflage, I think. Then she pulled out the topmost pair of shorts from her pants drawer--blue plaid. Finally, she pulled out the topmost shirt from her shirts drawer--blue long-sleeved button-down. Then she went back to her book while I spent the next half-hour bullying Sydney into the rest of her clothes.

My big girl did not want a cute little party dress to match her sister's. She really didn't so much *want* any cute little party clothes, but she does love it when I make her things, and she does have as much of a weakness for over-the-top-pink-heart-and-rainbow fabric as any other child, and what is the point, I ask you, of knowing how to sew AND having two children if I don't sew them matching outfits and then take lots of photos?

Therefore, I present to you the Rainbow Party Matching Rainbow Shorts:

The pattern is from the Oliver + S Puppet Show Tunic and Shorts pattern. And I have to say, I like the shorts just okay. I'm not used to dressing Willow in shorts that are so...short. You can't tell so much from the angle at which I took these photos, but they just seem a little short, in a baby-ish way, if that makes sense--sort of like a Shirley Temple  "Oh, look at those fat little baby thighs!", but it's not working so much for my almost-six-year-old. I suppose they really were meant to go with the tunic, or even a short jumper, something longer than the regular shirts that she'll wear with them, but Will, she'd never dress herself in all that on purpose, so I told her that after the party, these could be her pajama shorts.

They are super-cute, though. I omitted the gathered patch pockets because I knew that Willow wouldn't use them, so why waste the time (in retrospect, I should have made them and added them to Sydney's dress, instead, because she WOULD use them), but I made the waistband and bias out of the purple flannel that matches Sydney's party dress, and I REALLY like the gathering technique used for the leg openings of the shorts:

I'm DEF going to try that again on some other project. I've heard that's the way with Oliver + S patterns--in the process of sewing, you always learn something new and cool.

And there you have it--another rainbow project bites the dust. I let the girls waste what seemed like half the morning watching Clifford's Puppy Days--

--because little do they know that, like it or not (sometimes they like it, and sometimes not), they are going to be spending the entire afternoon in the community garden with me.

And then we'll have shepherd's pie (with soysage, not lamb, gross) and probably make rainbow cupcakes.

Just for ourselves.

Just because we can.