Oliver + S "Ice Cream Blouse" & Brown Bear, Brown Bear

"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?"

 My love affair continues with the Oliver + S "Ice Cream" Dress and Tunic pattern.  This time I made a blouse of white eyelet and cotton lace trim to go with a very colorful skirt.  This was another outfit for little Chloe to wear during the Eric Carle (children's author/illustrator) unit of study in her Pre-K class last March.  This time I didn't put the notch in the front neckline.

The eyelet was super soft and I lined it in a polycotton batiste.

Cotton lace from my stash.

The skirt was a UFO (unfinished object) begun two years ago.  I had the bottom made but didn't like the top of the dress (too much brown for my taste) and the dress languished until the top would never fit Chloe.  When I was looking through the UFO bins (yes, bins), I had the idea to just toss all that brown fabric and the top and just make a skirt for her instead.

The skirt has two layers of Eric Carle fabric purchased from his museum (HERE) several years ago.  They have even more fabric options now!  The bear is appliqued from a motif from a third fabric from this line.

 I added a narrower waist panel when I changed this piece from a dress to the skirt.  The button helps the child identify the front of the garment.  "Button over the bellybutton!"

 Here is the irrepressible Miss Chloe wearing the outfit after school in her mama's classroom last March.  She recently wore the skirt with a white tank top and brown sandals to afternoon tea at my home.  The skirt is a little bit shorter but still fits perfectly.  It will be a good outfit for kindergarten this autumn.  Her mama would like another white blouse as this "Ice Cream" top is in regular rotation with several other shorts and skirts.  It is so comfortable and goes with everything!

She is a character!  My father would have said, "She is a piece of work!"  LOVE her!

"Yippee!  We're done!  No more pictures!"

Have a wonderful day!

Oliver+S Meets the Very Hungry Caterpillar

"The next day was Sunday again.  The caterpillar ate through one nice green leaf and after that he felt much better."

Oliver+S "Ice Cream Dress"  Size 3

Every year at the end of March our school recognizes Eric Carle and his vast contribution  to children's literature.  The preschool, Pre-K, kindergarten, and first grade classes study/celebrate his works most of the month of March.  Of course, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, with its counting, days of the week, and life cycle theme is one of the books enjoyed the most.  

My little friend, Chloe, needed a special dress for the culminating all-day event at the end of the unit in her Pre-K class.  I turned to the Oliver+S "Ice Cream Dress" because the Dr. Suess dress had come out so cute and looked darling on her.  (See post here.)  This time I made the dress just a tad longer and made only one leaf shaped pocket.

Leaf shaped pocket with appliqued caterpillar.

I took the leaf shape from a Hungry Caterpillar quilting panel, appliqued it with a caterpillar from another Hungry Caterpillar fabric, and lined it with white cotton.  You can purchase fabrics from Eric Carle's fabric lines in some quilting shops but I have the best luck just buying directly from The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art (HERE).

The back of the Oliver+S dress has a simple closure with a fabric loop and a pretty button.  I love this feature but if your child has a larger than average head size, it can make getting the dress on and off a tiny bit of a struggle.  For Chloe, it isn't an issue but I have read that it can be for some children.  For those children, (my own daughter would have been one of them) I would suggest making an easy continuous bound placket or a little facing piece for a couple of inches into the skirt section.

I managed to remember to bring my camera on the big day and caught Chloe at lunch in the cafeteria.  She loved her dress and received many compliments on it.

I think that this length looked perfect on her.  Needless to say, when she tried it on for me recently, it was much shorter but it fit fine otherwise.  Chloe has been going through a growth spurt!  The dress will be a tunic if she can still wear it next March!

Yay!  Ice cream!  Yay! O+S "Ice Cream"!

May all who read this have a day filled with blessings and happiness!

Emma B's Very Hungry Caterpillar Dress and Allister's Caterpillar Shirt

Photos are clickable to enlarge.

Another Eric Carle dress!

 My friend Karen has four of the most beautiful grandchildren!  I have sewn for both Emma and Allister in the past.  This little outfit was a request as part of a trade for watching my sweet puppy girls (8 year old shih tzu sisters) when we went on vacation this summer.  I made an almost identical dress before for my godchild Cassidy when she was in kindergarten and Karen loved it.  You can see by looking at the picture in the blog heading that just the ribbon and rick rack trim on the apron and the binding on the hem is different.

Dress Back

 I used the Petal Knot Dress by Portabellopixie again and four different Eric Carle prints from his Very Hungry Caterpillar line referenced in the last post.

 Allister and Emma are only a year apart and both go to my school.  Allister will be in my kindergarten class this year!  I just took a caterpillar from another of the prints in the line to applique onto a purple shirt so that he can wear it when 4 year old Emma wears her dress.

Both children will be reading Eric Carle books in their classrooms so it will be fun for them to wear their special things during the year.  I would love to see how other people have used this fabric line.  I have several more items to share soon!

Chloe's Hungry Caterpillar Play Set

Bad photography!  I cut off a corner of the top.  Goodness!

 Happy Sunday!  Eric Carle books make me smile with their charming artwork and bright colors.  I am so very glad that he decided to have fabric made from some of the precious art in his books!  The Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric line has been out for several years and actually was released in two different fabric lines.  They make wonderful quilts and bedding items for wee people's rooms.  He has several other lines from other books out now (The Very Grouchy Ladybug, Rubber Ducks, etc.).  Many quilt stores carry his lines and you can also buy fabric from the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.   http://www.carlemuseum.org/Home

This little appliqued patch is from a fabric that has lines of the food our hungry friend ate!  The patch was straight.  Really.  My set-up and photography was crooked!  

 I am in love with the bold and bright colors!  It makes me very happy to make clothing using his fabrics!  This outfit was made for a co-worker's daughter over a year ago.  Her mommy was teaching pre-K at the time and was teaching an Eric Carle unit.  She purchased the "holes" fabric and I had some of the other fabric left from another project so that I could surprise her and make it reversible.

 The pattern for both the Summer Top and Pan*ty is "Sydney" by Bonnie Blue Designs.  The pattern contains six sizes from 3 months to 3 years.  The pattern was truly very easy.

Back view of the top with the purple fabric peeking out.  Such a scrumptious purple color and taken from an actual piece of paper that Mr. Carle made to use in his collage art work.

There are several other projects that I will be showing you using The Very Hungry Caterpillar line of fabrics.  Have you made anything using his designs?  I'd love to hear about them and to see!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Day

The Big Day

Update: We had a wonderful day on Jumpstart's Read For the Record: The Very Hungry Caterpillar Day! It was such fun to see my creations enjoyed. Maddie's mom purchased the skort from me and Cassidy wore the dress I made for her birthday.

I didn't have time to make myself a Very Hungry Caterpillar outfit but I pinned some paper copies of the famous caterpillar to my green straw hat and wore a butterfly blouse. My daughter (age 15) and I loved it and I wore it all day. My husband laughed (he's used to me) and my son (age 14) just shook his head and made sure I wasn't picking him up from high school that day!

A simply delightful mom of one of my students went all out for the day, too. She pinned a purchased set of felt story telling props made by Eric Carle onto a green shirt for her son and dressed up her baby daughter as the butterfly! Soooooo cute!

We did lots of special things with the class. The favorite was coloring sequence pictures of the story and cutting them out and gluing them to a large green leaf. Then every child had a story telling aide to use when retelling the story to their parents that night.

Happy children + a great theme = a happy teacher!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Jumpstart's Read For the Record has asked everyone to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle on October 8th (For more information go to http://www.ericcarleblog.blogspot.com/ .) I love Eric Carle's books with their bright colorful illustrations and was delighted last July when I saw on his museum page that he has fabric lines based on two of his books: The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? I quickly purchased several lengths of fabric from both lines with visions of caterpillars dancing in my head! If you wish to see the full lines go to Mr. Carle's museum page at http://www.eric-carle.com/museum.html.

Three of the four Eric Carle inspired outfits are for my sweet godchild Cassidy who turned 6 in mid September.

First in the line up is a shorts set for Cassidy made using a retro Simplicity pattern from 1970 and the Brown Bear fabrics. It tickled me to use this pattern that was designed and printed a few years before Cassidy's mommy was even born! I needed to add a little length to the shorts, though. We were really wearing things SHORT back then!

Back View

This capris set was made using three of the fabrics from the Caterpillar fabric line. There are little caterpillars and the book title all over the white fabric

Back View

This is a little skort I made using one of the sections of the panel fabric.

Back View

I saved my favorite for last. In the following photo Cassidy watches as her father holds up her birthday gift from me. I really had fun with this one! I used five of the fabrics in the Caterpillar line and lots of trims. The white cotton peasant blouse that I made for this dress looks so pretty with it. The dress can be worn without it, too! I am looking forward to October 8th to see this on her!

Back View

I hope that you like these Eric Carle inpired designs. I had such fun making them!