cottington's so crafty: Two Times the 2 and 2 by Oliver and S

It happens to be super early, Thanksgiving morning. I have cupcakes to bake in a few hours, but while everyone sleeps, I thought I'd whip up this blog post before our fun weekend ahead.

A bonus of sorts...and a mini catastrophe: I did manage to use fabrics from my stash - for allll four pieces - SCORE!!! I also managed to cut one of the tree blouse pieces UPSIDE DOWN - NOT score :( You will note this creates a bit of a problem when using a fabric from your stash....this print is no longer available (and in my searches to replace it, I found the other coordinating prints from that line - who knew?!). I finally found it on Craigslist, with the help of some other "researchers" ;)

Yesterday, I managed to snag a few pictures of the Oliver and S blouse and skirt set - the 2 + 2. I tell you WHAT: It is MUY DIFFICULT for me to take pictures of pleats. I probably should have taken a non-action shot, so, don't hate on my complete lack of photography skills. These were rushed, LOL, and my child, when presented with a camera these days, has to be either a "monster" or she has to tip her head sideways and look other places, rather than at me or the camera. It's a tough break for me ;)

The pattern itself is lovely and easy to follow. I do have ONE beef, which could be entirely just ME, still not sure about that: The directions have you but the button loop on the wrong skirt piece - like, the directions and the picture don't match up. So, I attached it to the back piece on the first skirt, the minty one, but I did it the other way on the second. Anyway, I did silly things to make up for the button placement on the green skirt, so, ignore my tomfoolery there.

Can't believe I'm showing this photo, as it drives me NUTS...both the buttons and the topstitching!

Otherwise, the pattern itself is lovely, naturally. I will say I wish my rectangles had come out prettier, which you will notice in the photos. My top stitching is even, but when I turned the piece/s out, I guess I was a bit lazy, though I swear I tried to make them look nice.

I did the size 4, and the skirts are definitely big on Camden, both in waist and in length - this is the first skirt that doesn't involve any sort of elastic, so, the poor girl with no bum has to keep pulling her skirt up, aha! I think the short-sleeved version looks less sloppy on her for the reason that there is just less fabric overwhelming her little 3.5 year old body. As I alluded to above, pleats are tricky - they were pressed out super neatly five point two seconds before I took pictures, but she sat down for a minute, and it was all over for the red skirt, aha! The green fabric is just quilting cotton, but the red is a cross-weave or something - and neither will hold up to bum-smashings.

Lastly, I included some super fancy hand embroidery ;) This is definitely something that slows a person down, as I also wanted to hand stitch the hem of the skirt to cover the back side of the embroidery - and because I didn't want to have a a visible line of edge stitching on the right side for this particular skirt, as I think it would detract from the overall look. My French knots look better than they did on my first embroidery project, but the trees overall look a bit of a garbled mess, aha!