every part of the buffalo (#196)

Last night at Cubbies was Hawaii night. Aubie has nothing Hawaiian. Well, at least, she didn't. So I asked Eda if Aubie could have this Hawaiian shirt. Ma had gotten it on clearance for very cheap--she has an awesome knack for finding bargains!--and had given it to Leah the week before.
I had seen an idea similar to this dress online, but that style was a bit more complicated than I wanted to attempt, at least for my first try at this anyway. So, I put the shirt on Aubie, told her to hold her arms up and got to work. Oh, how I hate pinning! But this project only took about 10 pins so I was happy. I cut the collar off, Fray Check-ed the edges, rickrack-ed it (with some perfectly matching rickrack that Renee had given me for my birthday!), etc. Over all, the dress took about 2 hours. Washing and drying a load of laundry takes longer than that sometimes! Next time my child has nothing to wear, I may go raid mine and David's closets ;)
(since this picture, I added a line of rickrack across the seam where that green leaf gets cut in half)

On the making of the "The Incredibles" Brad Bird says, "Use every part of the buffalo". Well, that line came to my head when I was trying to figure out how I needed to make the strap for the purse. I really didn't want to have to cut straight strips out of the leftover fabric, or try to find some ribbon to match. Then I remembered the collar I had cut off. Perfect. I turned it inside out and sewed the cut edges back together , then flipped it back (through the small hole I left) and sewed down the side. I used the two sleeves one inside out inside the other so that the purse would have a lining. And of course it's accented with the same rickrack as the dress. There's actually a bit of fabric left--enough to add panels to a pair of shorts for Matthan next summer (this is a men's shirt, by the way). That way and Aubie can match, without being matchy-matchy.