I sew when I’m stressed out. Or when I’m happy. Or when the sun shines. And on any day ending in “y”, mostly. I’ve been doing a lot of sewing for the shop and realized that I’ve been telling The Tot that I’ll make her all kinds of things and then promptly forgetting to do so amidst the baby flannel and interesting cotton prints calling to me to make baby stuff. When I realized that, I walked into my stash (half of it resides in my walk-in closet…don’t have a lot of clothes but I have a lot of fabric!) and picked out some fabric right away. She had been carrying around this enormous (for her) tote bag of mine that almost dragged on the ground and calling it her purse. What self-respecting Crafty Mommy lets her Little Princess get away with not having a few dozen cute little purses? So I went to work on this tote bag/halter dress outfit and here’s how it turned out: (Please excuse the hideous pictures…need to work on my photography and The Tot is a forever-moving target…)

The last pic is of the tie on the halter dress. I used a contrasting hot pink fabric for the lining of the dress, (which also ends up being the back side of the ties) instead of the same fabric as the body of the dress as was called for in the pattern. Matches the hot pink ruffle I added to the bottom of the dress that did not exist in the pattern. Some days you’ve just gotta ruffle, I find…

There are plans in the works for another set like this that will have cost me, all told $4 because I bought the fabric on deep discount. Cute summer outfit for $4? Priceless!