The Ninth Day of Christmas: Lollipop Garden Crafts

December 09, 2013

On the Ninth Day of Christmas, Yeka from Lollipop Garden Crafts is guest posting for our series. Yeka lives in Canada but was born in Indonesia. She mostly sews for her daughter. Check out this gorgeous plaid dress she made. occasionally she sews for her son too. Have a look at this awesome gingham shirt she made him recently....And, she also sews for herself! Check out these gorgeous dresses! I think Yeka has great style and her sewing is beautiful. Yeka has made a gorgeous festive dress for her beautiful daughter for our series.

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Hi everyone! I'm Yeka and I blog about my sewing at Lollipop Garden Crafts. Thank you Suz and Laura for inviting me to join this fun series. I'm glad to be part of this and enjoy reading every participant's story about Christmas tradition and their amazing creations.

I'm using Japanese patterns most for my sewing projects, not because it's better than other patterns but simply because I get used to it. The measurement is in centimetre and pattern without seam allowances make me easy to visualize and adapt to my children's measurement.

For this festive sewing series, I chose simple design, yet created different look than my daughter's everyday dresses. I decided to make balloon dress for the 6 y.o and asked her to select one of three fabrics I took from my stash. I think she made right choice, the fabric is soft and it drapes well.

I used pattern from Girls Style Book, Japanese version (English version of this book was published in April this year). Lining of bodice is using main fabric and skirt's lining is white cotton. I tempted to sew red and green pom-pom trim on front bodice but I omitted it as the fabric speaks itself. So, I added green ribbon instead. For comfort and more secure, I changed back closure of dress from bias tape ribbon to button loop closure. The dress is turned out good and my daughter is so excited to get new dress that she will wear for winter concert at school next week.

More details:

Pattern: Girls Style Book pattern I, size 120cm.

Fabric: Lecien fabric, Woodland Fairies by Nathalie Lyner bought from JAQS Fabrics.

As I don't celebrate Christmas, there's nothing special at home. In the past years, I usually spent my Christmas holidays out of town for short vacations or went downtown to see decorations, windows shopping and dinner out. Christmas is holiday that I always look forward, I feel glad about it, maybe being influenced by the joy of festivity. One of memorable holidays when first time I went abroad on Christmas eve, first time experienced sunny days around 8pm while in my origin country, Indonesia, days are getting dark by 6pm all years. I had short trip to Australia and have had wonderful Christmas holidays there. Joined a group tour, I visited beautiful Gold Coast beach, Brisbane, Melbourne, Parliament House Canberra, Blue Mountains and Sydney downtown. Years later, I chose Australia again as our honeymoon destination. We travelled to same cities but with different kind of attractions, this time we visited Phillip Island to watch penguin parade day. The world's smallest penguins waddle ashore after spending the day fishing out at sea. How cute they are!

This Christmas is our second year in Canada. Last year I brought my children to see decorations at downtown area. Here, I share pictures I took last year at Eaton Centre. Merry Christmas everyone, hope you enjoy your season holidays!

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Thanks so much for taking part Yeka! I love this sweet and festive bubble dress! Your daughter looks gorgeous in it! I am glad you like Australia too! It is the best country in the world in my opinion. Happy Christmas to you and your family!!

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Today at Craftstorming, Christine from Heidi and Finn is guest posting. Click on the picture to take you there.