Embroidered Pink Baby Dress

My daughter in Colorado has recently sent me several boxes of outgrown baby clothes for storage, so I've been rummaging through them to find any of the items I've made.

This is from Best Embroidered Baby Clothes One, a pattern by Jeannie Baumeister of Old Fashioned Baby.  It is made from pink cotton batiste and ecru lace. The design is slightly my own. I've taken design elements from Jeannie's patterns and arranged them a bit differently.

The tucks are hand sewn, which gives them a nice, soft look.  After I made it, I realized that if my daughter has another girl, I hope her name begins with a B so she can wear the dress.
 

The initial is shadow work, and all embroidery is done with ecru DMC floss. The flowers are bullions made into a detached chain. There is lots of featherstitching, with French knots for variety.

I attached the lace with point de Paris, or pin stitch, all done by hand. Instead of cutting away the fabric behind the lace, I left it on. Jeannie does this with a lot of her dresses, and I really like the look of it. It's also much quicker than cutting the fabric, then rolling and whipping it to secure it.

The actual construction of the dress is by machine, including attaching the lace to the neckline, sleeves and hem.

I also made a slip, with some simple embroidery on the front.

The neckline and armholes are hand stitched with a shell hem. So how on earth can the photos of the slip be so different from the dress? I took them at the same time in the same place.  Grrrr.

And here is a blurry photo of Bridget wearing the dress. As I've mentioned before, my daughter inherited her photo skills from her mom.

I really like this pattern, as I like all of Jeannie's patterns. Her style is very sweet, dainty and cute. You can add as much or as little lace as desired. Her embroidery is fairly simple, but appropriate for a baby dress. I generally tend to add more featherstitching, as I love it on baby clothes.

There is nothing I don't like about this, except that using fine cotton batiste makes it a bit difficult to iron. This can be a stumbling block for young moms who don't have the time for ironing, and grandma lives too far away to do it for them.

I'll write about other dresses I've made as I find them.