Oh Bother, A Pooh Dress And Pattern Review

Last week I set about to make a little present for a special  friend of mine's 2nd birthday.  I've been hoarding this sweet Winnie the Pooh fabric for years.  It's not the kind of stuff I usually buy, I'm not really one for character fabric.  I thought this was cute though when I bought it, I like the colors and it was printed with a pooh border at the bottom and the flowers got gradually bigger at the top so I treated it as three kinds of fabric, the bottom, middle and top.  I used the bottom border for the skirt of the dress, the smaller flowers for the bodice and the bigger flowers for the handles of the purse.  I used a pattern bought at a yard sale for this jumper and wanted to give a little review, I made McCalls 8495 I'm sure this pattern is out of print, but could be purchased from Ebay.  The dress itself went together very smoothly, one of the easiest I've ever done.  The pockets another story all together.  They are patch pockets that have a tie at the top.  I swear the instructions pretty much just say sew them together.  I had to stare at them for a good hour before I finally figured out how they went together.  That drives me crazy on patterns, when they show detailed drawings and instructions for the simplest things and then just glaze over the hardest part of the pattern.  Sheesh!  Anyway, I used another pattern for a sun hat, Mccalls 5084.  It went together really easy, but the pattern sizing was a big problem.  I ended up having to remove an entire section of the crown to make it fit the brim, with the extra crown section in the crown was far too large for my six year old..  I also made a cute little purse to go with it.  I don't have a pattern, but here is a link to the process. When it was all said and done, I was pretty proud of how it turned out, sewing for little girls is fun.  I wish Sweets would wear stuff I made!  Best compliment received was from the husband who said, "it looks professional"  when I showed him the finished dress!