Julianna's birthday dress (and jacket)

It's hard to believe that sweet Julianna has already been a member of our extended family for three years. Gail Doane provided the inspiration for Julianna's birthday dress and jacket. Gail designs beautiful children's clothing and many of her smocked and embroidered dresses have been featured in Australian Smocking and Embroidery magazine.

The pattern for this dress is found in Gail's fairly recent book Sew Cute Couture.

I picked this brightly colored bishop style dress for Julianna because I thought the color would be beautiful and vibrant on her.

Gail is all about special little details like this entredeux trim with the embroidery floss detail.

The dress buttons up the back.

The jacket is lined and the edges bound with gingham bias trim just like the neckline and sleeves of the dress.

I loved the inverted pleat on the jacket back and the curved front and back yokes.

There are also many embroidered embellishments like the buttons separated by a running stitch.

These embroidered hearts grace the front (on Gail's design they grace the back as well but I thought the front was just fine :) The buttons on the jacket front are also green heart shaped.

Birthday dresses most often are given with a matching dress for a doll. It is always possible to dress a doll with the "leftovers."

This time I also provided the doll. It was fun to dress her, put her back in the box, and wrap her in birthday paper.

Julianna was delighted with all of it.

I also provided white tights and new black Mary Jane shoes to cover those cute little feet and legs.

I simply can not imagine life without this sweet, vivacious, happy little girl.