Three generations, one dress

When my mum was in grade 12 she made a dress for her potential future daughter. This was the 1960's, naturally, the dress was A-line and short.

She kept that dress stored away until she had me, over ten years later.

Here is a picture of me wearing the dress, along with my mum and my older brother

After I grew out of it, my mum packed away the dress in a suitcase for future daughters and the next generation.

No other daughters came and Puddle was the next eligible suitor. When Puddle grew big enough, the dress became hers.

Here is a picture of my mum and I recreating the original (above) photo. Sorry Jeff, mum took your place...

Delightful coincidence

Here's a magical coincidence, today is Puddle of Pink's 1 year anniversary and this is her 100th post!

After a year of writing this blog I wish I could offer a few kernels of wisdom for dressing your baby but I'm not too sure wisdom and clothes belong together in one sentence. (I do have some thoughts on cloth diapering, but I'll resuscitate my Cloth Diaper Diary to discuss those).

My only honest reflection on my experience of dressing little Puddle over the last year is a little cliche and totally sappy. But here goes.

I could easily do without all of the dresses and rompers and hand me downs and bonnets. My single favourite way to cloth Puddle is in her birthday suit.

I love naked baby bodies. I love their bums. I love their rolls of fat that hang from their thighs. I love their fat-cuffs at their wrists. I love the dimples on their hands.

Here's Puddle finally getting naked time outside. Hello sunshine!

Dresrospective

I love opening Puddle's closet and being greeted by her colourful dresses.

Each dress represents a memory from her first year.

First wedding!

First heat wave!

First back-to-school outfit!

First Christmas...and first candy cane!

First Valentine's Day!

First fireside chat!

Now that she's turned the corner into her second year, it's time to cull the smaller dresses and make room for more memories. 

Happy 1st Birthday

My little baby is growing up. She's one year old today.

It's hard to write this post without leaning on a bunch of old cliches: It's feels like only yesterday that you were born! You're the light of my life! You're the best thing that has ever happened to me!

But I guess there's a reason these old sayings stick. They're true.

Here's my little angel wearing a dress I wore when I was one.

I didn't capture it one camera, but she tried to rip the dress off right after this photo was taken...

Happy birthday Puddle. I love you.

Puddle of purple

If you know me well, you know that my favourite colour is purple. I cemented my love of purple (warning, embarrassing omission ahead) by getting a purple tattoo as a teenager.

I also chose to read, The colour purple - obviously one of my favourite books - to my campers when I was a teenage camp counsellor. This got me into a whole lot of hot water with the camp director.

So you can imagine how shocked and dismayed I was when, a few years later, a well-intentioned friend hinted that liking the colour purple was less than cool.

Turns out, liking purple is reserved for new-age-types. And again, if you know me well, you know that I am not a new-age-type.

But I can't shake my thing for the colour purple. This becomes clear when you do a quick survey of the clothes I buy and make for Puddle...

(and of the flowers I make my husband photograph)...

Clearly my Aunt knows about my love of all things purple, she hand knit this lovely cardigan for Puddle.

I've only bought Puddle two pairs of shoes. Both are shades of purple. I bought them on the same day. Coincidently, also the day I realized I was projecting my love of purple onto Puddle.

A visit to the barber

Puddle's Nonno is a barber. So having Nonno give Puddle her first hair cut seemed obvious.

Suspecting that I might react badly to Puddle's hair being cut, my husband warned me that Nonno would likely cut it shorter than I'd like.

But I agreed to it being cut anyways.

Because here's the thing. You can warn somebody as much as you'd like not to do something (or in this case, allow something) but they'll likely do it anyways. As a rule, warnings are never heeded. People are curious animals. And sort of sadistic. They need to experience things themselves in order to understand them.

So I gave the go ahead...

Puddle's dad assess the situation...

 Nonno gets to work...

A little off the top....

...a little off the back...
   

...almost done.



So here's something that's true. My husband knows me well. I was initially a little upset with how short Nonno cut it.

But I got over it. Quickly. The idea that Puddle can look back on these pictures and know that her Nonno lovingly gave her her first haircut is heartwarming.

Plus, I've always had a thing for pixie haircuts.

Here's Puddle enjoying Nonna's lasagna post-haircut.

Hoppy Easter

Puddle is celebrating her first Easter by wearing one of my old dresses.

I love the fussy details on the dress, the lace, the scalloped collar, the bow on the back, the rosebuds. It has just the right amount of over-the-topness for a special occasion.

I have it admit, this is all I have planned for Puddle's first Easter. She's only 9 months. I don't need to give her a gift or do something fancy, right? Right?!

Puddle love

Valentine's Day gave Puddle an opportunity to wear a few dresses that haven't seen a lot of action recently.

The dress below is from Bangladesh. Puddle's uncle Dan brought back from Dahka. What could be more of an interesting souvenir than baby clothes?

Here's Puddle wearing a plaid jumper from her Nonna. The heart-shaped buttons made it perfect for Valentine's day.

Origin of the dress unknown, but the label did say the dress would fit a 6-12 month old. This struck me as the most honest size label I've ever seen. Basically the makers have no idea when it will fit your baby.

Here's Puddle in a red corduroy dress, tired of all of the costume changes. A feature of this dress is the tie back. A tie in the back, which cinches the waist, turns a big dress into a small one. This sort of adjustablity makes this type of dress a great gift. Puddle has been wearing it since last October.

Happy 1/2 Birthday!

My little Puddle of love is 6-months-old today.

Happy half-birthday precious! I love you.

The mail, delivered

Finally Puddle's dress pattern arrived in the mail. My goal is to finish the dress within the week. This should be attainable as the pattern pieces are so teeny weeny!

In the meantime here's a photo of Puddle wearing her Christmas dress from Unc Mike and enjoying an elicit candy cane. This dress is Baby Gap. I'm always impressed by the clothes the Gap makes for babies and kids, much more impressive than what they make for adults.

Note: turns out candy canes are not good toys for babies. Puddle ripped off the wrapper of this candy cane and devoured half of it while my back was turned. Clever baby, candy canes are for kids!

Scalloped edges

A short story:

A couple of years ago my dear friend Krista was pregnant. She and her husband decided to find out the sex of the baby before it was born. After she found out, she called me.

"I'm having a girl," she shrieked. "I'm so excited, scalloped edges!"

Krista, I hear you sister. An adorable old dress of mine has scalloped edged cuffs, hem, and neckline.

Channeling Randy

Puddle hates her winter coat. It restricts access to her hands.

Even if I roll up the sleeves she still can't bend her elbows and bring her fingers to her mouth. Very reminiscent of a great scene in a Christmas Story.

64 days to go

Yikes! I need to get started on my Christmas sewing. Luckily my brother already bought Puddle a adorable red Christmas dress. But Pud will probably need a couple more dresses right? And she needs a stocking. And our house needs decorations. Oh god, I can already feel the anxiety/excitement rising. Or is it joy?

VariniaRose red satin Holiday Dress

Trick or treat!

Ebi nigiri won the "Puddle's 1st Halloween Costume" contest!

I had a lot of fun making this costume. I'm sort of dreading the day when she asks for a store-bought costume. I don't want to be a Halloween snob, some store-bought costumes are very clever. And I'm aware of the fact that most parents don't have A) the time, B) the resources, and C) the interest to make Halloween costumes for their kids. But because right now I have A, B, and C, I'm going to make the most of the fact that she can't choose her costumes for herself!

Life before shopping online

It's hard to imagine what it would be like to live during the times of the dinosaurs, but not as hard as it is to imagine living in the time without the Internet. How did people bank in the middle of the night? Keep up-to-date on the milestones of their friends from kindergarten? And most importnatly how did they buy the cutest, trendiest baby clothes from the comfort of their own living room?

In the time before online shopping, there were catalogues. And for mums, there was the Mothercare catalogue. Mothercare is a British retailer which sells everything you'll need for your baby and young kids. In the 1970s it was the one-stop shopping place for expectant and new mums. Mothercare is still around with shops in many parts of the world and an extensive online shop.

One of the dresses from the suitcase of dresses is a Mothercare dress.

I love how this dress looks like a little school girl dress. It reminds me of contemporary French baby clothing. It's modest and sweet, appropriate for a baby.

All the pretty dresses

About a month before I had Puddle my mum pulled a special suitcase out of storage.

The suitcase revealed she had kept all of the pretty dresses I had worn as a baby. What a wonderful gift for her daughter and granddaughter.

Some of the dresses airing in my parent's backyard. 

My excitement over discovering the suitcase inspired me to start this blog. I wanted a way to document my delight in dressing Pud in the pretty dresses. So as Pud grows into each dress, I'll show it here.

Dance, magic, dance

You remind me of the babe.

What babe?

The babe with power.

What power?

The power of voodoo.

Who do?

You do.

Do what?

Remind me of the babe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is the song I sing every time Pud wears this outfit.

If you didn't grow up watching David Bowie rock out with puppets, here's what I'm talking about:

The bride, and Pud, wore white

Our close friends Kora and Will are getting married today. And I want Puddle to wear something that is fancy enough to suit the venue - a beautiful old heritage home - and that will fit her properly. I find that fit is critical in making baby clothes look good. If a dress is too big, it just bunches and floats around the baby, losing its style.

Luckily I had an opportunity to dash off to H&M. H&M designs fashionable - and usually functional - baby and children's clothes at cheap prices. Unfortunately the day I went they didn't have a lot of dresses in stock that would fit a six week-old. The only dress that would fit Pud was cute, but not as fancy as I would have liked, it was basically a onesie with tutu ruffles around the waist.  And it was white. At six weeks-old and at her first wedding, Pud broke wedding etiquette and wore white to a wedding.

H&M white, onesie, tutu-dress $14.99. I chose long sleeves so that if the weather turned cold, we didn't have to wrap Pud up, covering her pretty dress.

We also took Puddle to the rehearsal dinner last night. Luckily, I had one dress tucked away that would fit her - a dress of mine!

I love vintage baby clothing. It's so different from the clothing babies wear now, beautiful detailing, finer materials, and lots of influence from adult fashion trends. This dress has matching leggings that were too big for Pud so I made sure she wore a white cloth diaper. One great advantage to cloth diapers is that because they're made of cloth, they don't have to be covered up like disposables do. In fact, cloth diapers can be incorporated into an outfit!