A dip-dyed dress and a kitty bag

First day of summer holidays - yay! Unfortunately it's a stinking hot day - over 40 degrees as I write this - and we're all staying inside with just the odd foray outdoors to hang up washing, rescue wilting plants, retrieve cats etc. I dragged R away from her cubby-house building and persuaded (ie bribed) her to try on this somewhat experimental dress.

Inspired by Toya's stunning dip-dyed dress I had a go at dying some cotton lawn before cutting out the dress pieces. As you can see the results are somewhat stripy and not nearly as amazing as Toya's, but I do love the shades of purple (Dylon intense violet, in case anyone wants to know). The pattern is from this book, which was part of a thoughtful and generous Christmas gift I received from... me. The book has some great patterns, but I am mystified by the use of American food products in the photographs. Was the stylist perhaps a huge fan of Lays chips and Hershey bars? Or is there some uniquely Japanese logic to their inclusion that I don't understand? Anyway, this is top #6, lengthened. I added a few centimetres' width to the front and back pieces for extra body, and the fit is pretty good except that the armholes turned out surprisingly wide. The pattern is almost identical to the Citronille Marie that I made a couple of months ago. It looks cute worn as is, or tied around the waist with some hastily-made tassels on a string. Probably loose will be the way to go, especially given the hot and sticky weather at the moment and the fact that Morry thinks the tassels are a cat-toy and has already had a good chew on them.

Some time ago I saw this fantastic cheetah bag on the Kids Clothes Week site. I checked out the original tutorial and made one for R, using linen for the outside and synthetic fleece for the inside. The fleece gives the bag a good, substantial structure and it feels soft and appropriately cat-like when you put your hand in it. I added press-studs at the ear-tips so the bag can be (kind of) closed, which also prevents the ears from flopping. Despite my less-than-professional embroidery skills, I really do adore this bag and R loves it, too. I made it a few months back and haven't blogged it til now, but what do you know, the purple embroidery makes it a perfect match with the dress!

I have another outfit ready to be photographed, but it's too hot to do anything right now, so I'm going to have to close this hot laptop and retreat to the airconditioned comfort of the loungeroom, which I have been avoiding so as not to have to listen to the sounds of Return of the Jedi being screened at full volume. Melbournians, I hope you're keeping cool today!