Sewing: Coastal Curtsy Dresses for the Beach

 

 

Not only is this the season for grand family gatherings, it is also the season for those pull-your-hair-out Christmas-card-family-photo sessions. Right?! Well, I was determined to get ahead of December this year (last year I think I was still sewing the photo outfits in mid-December) but by mid November I still hadn't taken any photos.

 

 

I had been thinking about an ensemble of neutrals in an earthtone setting (tone on tone on tone) and then I realized our beach trip over Thanksgiving would provide the perfect backdrop! I can't help myself the last few years--I view just about every trip as an opportunity to find a different setting for photographing my girls.

 

 

I had imagined sewing a ruffled dress for Scarlett inspired by Katy's Coastal Twirly Skirt. I used her tutorial to make the skirt and then used my own pattern for a boatneck tee for the shirt, which went pretty well, but I did have to pay a lot more attention to the direction the ruffles were laying when I was pinning! I used an offwhite and charcoal dotted ruffle fabric purchased here and added this oversized crochet pouf. 

 

For Audrey I had a more tailored dress in mind. Something in linen from a vintage pattern. I sort of missed that Labor Day linen deadline, and was thinking of rebelling and doing it anyway, but then it was a couple days before we were leaving town and I realized the technical sewing just wasn't possible. So I pulled out this gorgeous grey ruffle fabric I bought after seeing Katy's Coastal Curtsy skirt (same as many of you I bet!) and decided I would do a ruffle dress for Audrey too!

These ruffle dresses were perfect. They pack well (scrunched into the suitcase at the last minute, to be honest), were super fun for the girls to wear (no couching needed for these shots of them frolicking on the beach), and they look pretty too.

So we pulled off the family photo. My sister and I each wrestled our families down to the beach one morning and took turns behind the camera for the full family shots. Which meant we got some fun cousin shots too. It was a great way to do it, especially last minute.

 

And it wasn't too painful for everyone. I don't think our "shoot" lasted more than 10 minutes and there was plenty of time for running around.

 

 

Why is it that the idea of a family photo, even a spontaneous one, always seems so awful, especially for the dads in the group, but then afterwards we're all pretty happy about it? (Dad took these shots, by the way.)

Tess wore a ruffled linen purchased dress. I'm practicing the practicality of not doing it all myself all of the time....

 

So the photo portion of the cards is complete, and we got some beautiful new dresses out of the effort too. (Thanks, Katy!) I'm saving THE photo to share later, once the cards are designed. It's nice to be a bit ahead of schedule this year.

 

How about you? Planning a holiday card?