The 12 Days of Christmas: nest full of eggs

December 02, 2013

On the second day of Christmas, I am excited to have Rachel from nest full of eggs guest posting today.  Rachel blogs from Minnesota in the US and sews for her three children.  My favourite of Rachel's recent sewing projects was this amazing dress she sewed for Kids' Clothes Belgian Style series at Straightgrain. Rachel also sews lovely dresses for charity.  Have a look at these sweet geranium dresses.  Rachel also blogs about fun crafts - have a look at her recent nativity scene she made.
 
Today Rachel is sharing a gorgeous sparkly dress and lovely coat to match.  I love her 24 karat buttons! Thank you Rachel, they are both lovely!!

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Season's greetings! I am Rachel and I blog at nest full of eggs. Many thanks to Suz and Laura for the invitation, I am so happy to be a part of this holiday series, and am really looking forward to reading about everyone's traditions from around the world and not to mention all the Christmas sewing inspiration!

It has been said: "Christmas is for children." My favorite childhood Christmas time memories are playing in the snow, eating Christmas cookies baked from recipes from the 'Betty Crocker's Cooky Book' (I grew up in the same place where General Mills has it's headquarters), and I remember by our Christmas stockings there were always an orange, 3 apples (red, yellow, and green), and a loaf of sweet bread (mine was cranberry).

Now today with my own family we have many Christmastime traditions, foods, activities and other festive things that we do. There are too many to share, so for today I will share just one.

Our lives are very full during Advent, one of the festive days we observe is Saint Nicholas Day which is celebrated on December 6. On the evening of December 5th each of my three children put out a pair of wooden clogs (they came from my childhood when my parents visited the Netherlands, they brought these back for my older sister, older brother, and I). The next morning my children find gold foiled chocolate coins, a clementine, a candy cane, and a chocolate Saint Nicholas.
I am so excited to share my daughter's Christmas outfit for this year with you. It is a gold sequin Christmas dress and a red military Christmas dress coat.
 A few weeks ago, a friend gave me a Little Skye catalog. Going through the pages, my daughter fell in love with the sequin dresses. I found some teeny tiny gold sequin stretchy fabric at a fabric warehouse, it was exactly the type of fabric I was hoping to find!
 This is the perfect season to wear sequins. Adding *s*p*a*r*k*l*e* to the holiday season. The dress becomes one giant disco ball! Bringing light to our dark winter days.
 She thinks the dress is gorgeous :)
I also sewed her a hair accessory to coordinate with her Christmas ensemble, it's a fabric covered headband with a bow, made out of a gold fabric that was found in the special occasion/costume section, I think it's called 'liquid gold.'

Now moving onto the red military coat... 
I did another knock-off (modeled photo found here). I used thick red wool and 12 gold buttons (24K plated).
During the winter it gets quite cold where we live, so a nice cozy and warm wool coat will be very practical.
By the way I used Oliver + S sewing patterns (but highly modified) to achieve these looks.
Merry Christmas from Minnesota, USA!

(Now I have to go pick up all those little sequins that are all over my sewing room floor...)

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Pop over to craftstorming today to see what Mie from sewing like mad has made...I can't wait!


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On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree

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23 comments

  1. Wow, I have never seen gold sequin stretchy fabric like that - it looks amazing!!

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  2. Thanks for letting me participate ~ I was honored to be included in the series. I'm really enjoying it so far, such a wonderful idea you came up with.

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    1. Thank YOU Rachel. Both the dress and coat are beautiful. Your daughter's hair looks so gorgeous in the last photo:))

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  3. The coat is stunning! And my daughter would love a gold sequin dress like that. Beautiful!

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  4. What a beautiful dress, I'm not surprised your daughter is happy with it. The coat is absolutely gorgeous as well and so festive. Thank you for joining the series!

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  5. Absolutely stunning Rachel!! That jacket!!! WOW!! And so beautifully made!!!

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  6. Beautiful, Rachel! The dress is so much fun and I absolutely LOVE the red coat. Gorgeous!

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  7. Rachel, what a stunning outfit! The dress sure adds a sparkle, and the coat is - oh!

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  8. This outfit is just gorgeous! I love the red coat! Such a special outfit for Christmas!

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  9. April, Olga, & Jenya, cannot wait to see your Christmas sewing, are you done yet? Not to give you any stress! LOL!

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    1. Yes! My post goes live tomorrow so I'm done sewing, at least done sewing for this project!

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  10. Absolutely beautiful, such a gorgeous dress. Happy Advent!

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  11. I am speechless RAchel. This is just a stunning outfit! The dress is amazing in all of its sparkling glory and the jacket is just exquisite. I would love both adult size please!

    Now how am I supposed to follow this tomorrow? Yikes!!!

    Natalie
    XX

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  12. Rachel it's gorgeous! So sparkly shiny and I love the red coat too!! You're a master.

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  13. Such a beautiful outfit! I love the coat...the gold buttons are awesome! Mmmmmmm...sequins!

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  14. so beautiful...i have to hide the screen from my little girl because if she sees this she will probably no longer want the dress i made her! :)

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  15. Stunning outfits and photos, Rachel! Two thumbs up! :)

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  16. This is just stunning! Both the dress and the coat.

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  17. Stunning!
    The red coat is my favorite (I would wear it myself) but the sparkling dress is so fun (she must love it).

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  18. Oh my.....our niece would be in Heaven with a dress like this {but I'm too busy swooning over the coat}!!

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  19. LOVE (!!) all the sparkle...although I'm blocking my six-year-old's eyes from seeing it right now. If I planned better I'd try to whip this up by her Christmas Concert, but we all know that's not happening!

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  20. I am SO in love with this coat!! Please do a tutorial with your pattern mods! The dress is beautiful too ;-)

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  21. Just lovely and so festive! I LOVE the red coat. Amazing!

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