Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Easter Dresses

As a child I loved Easter for two reasons. Dyeing the eggs and the picnic and hunt that always followed and a new dress to wear for Sunday. Dad would always try to find a new park or lovely wooded area for us to go to for the picnic and Easter egg hunt. Mom would always make a new spring dress for me. There would usually be lace, or ribbon or rick rack on the dress and more often than not...lots of ruffles. I am sure it became a greater challenge as more and more girls were added to the family. I don't know when she started making the dresses for Easter, but if it were me, by the time there were 5 girls in the family I'd have to start sewing the day after I got Christmas decorations put away. One year she decided to make us all matching dresses. I believe they were lavender gingham. This was fine with me, I was the oldest. But in the Thurston family except for the occasional new dress, you wore hand me down clothes. I am sure my youngest sister Cheryl was really tired of that dress by the time she outgrew all five of them.

My first 3 children were boys and although I did sew for them, the T-shirts and shorts didn't cut it for me. I longed to make a frilly dress. Then I had Afton and enjoyed a few delightful years of little girl dress making.

With 8 grandsons and no granddaughters I have had a bit of a dry spell. Every Easter I look at the cute little girls in their frilly dresses as they prance into church and sigh. This year I decided to do something fun. Christian has been dating a girl who has two daughters, ages 4 and 7. I decided to make them sundresses and Afton brought over her sewing machine to help sew and make the process faster. After making the dresses, I decided to make their Barbie dolls matching dresses.

2 comments:

  1. Man! I was one cute little girl! :o) All the dresses you made turned out so great! You are very talented.

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  2. I remember Afton in those Easter dresses, especially the purple one. It was so fun to make dresses for my girls too. The tradition goes on with Emily and Jennifer. Em, did matching ones for her girls this year, but they were in all different colors. So, the pain of wearing the hand-me-down isn't so great. Love the matching Barbie dresses. I bet the girls were thrilled.

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