Mingo Madness

At the beginning of June we went to a local festival and my littlest one was having a bit of a temper tantrum about something.  I was able to divert her attention and stop the tears by pointing out a giant inflatable flamingo on top of a building.  She leaned in and said in her squeaky little voice:  I want a 'mingo snuggle friend.

About two weeks later I was down in Florida and figured that would be the best place to find a flamingo stuffed animal, but I never saw one at all.  Instead, I found some flamingo fabric at a quilt shop.  I bought a yard and figured that would be enough for a dress.

A dress.  One dress.  I have two kids.  When the older one learned of the new dress, she threw her usual fit about how unfair life is and how she never gets anything.  Obviously she forgets that she usually gets all the things first because she is much less compliant and easy going than the little one.  So I managed to squeeze out a bodice for the second dress out of the flamingo fabric.

They declined to stand together for the photo shoot and it was really overcast, but they were both in the dresses at the same time so I took advantage of that.  

I used the free Simple Simon Vintage Dress Pattern.  It was quick and easy...until I reached the button-holing.  I hate button holes.  My machine always clogs up and starts to sputter whenever I try them out.  I was in Florida two months ago (*sigh*), so they should have had these dresses before now.  Stupid button holes.

I made the first one and it went just fine.  When I got to the second one, it went to shit.  I just gave up at that point and decided to go to a professional tailor for the button holes.  I needed 15 (!) button holes for these cute little buttons:

Schwanda!

Anyway, there was just no way I was going to finish 15 buttons before the end of the summer, so I forked over way too much money for someone else to make me button holes.  Seriously.  I mean, I like to think that I'm saving myself some money by making clothes for my kids, but these dresses have cost much more than I have ever spent on like 20 kids' dresses.

Whatever.  

Second dress:

The white fabric has the advantage of coming with a hem and the disadvantage of being sort of see-through.  I found an iron on patch at Target:

I suppose the white also has the disadvantage of being white.  The first thing my husband said about the dress:  "It's going to get so dirty."    Ugh, well what else is new?  My eldest is covered in pee, paint, markers, maple syrup,  dried milk, spaghetti sauce, and dirt 80% of the time, so...yeah, I know that it will get dirty, but it was free fabric that I didn't have to hem.   

And what about that 'mingo snuggle friend?  I found one and she loves it.

 The other one did not get a snuggle friend (she has like a gazillion of them), but I gave her two tiny flamingo figurines.  Here she is pouting about the lack of snuggle friend.  Eventually I was able to show her that she had three special flamingoes (the two in her hands and the one on her dress).

She eventually came around: