Olivia's dress

I decided that this year I want to be as green as I can for the holidays, and one way is to give up cycled gifts. I decided to make a sweater dress and hat for my niece. I used a large, loose-knit woman's sweater in colors that were just obnoxious for adult attire, but perfect for a 5-year old!

I first cut off the sleeves - and later used one to make a hat - and then stitched down each side seam to make it slimmer. I cut the sleeves off of a junior's wool sweater. I also cut the neckband off to attach to the dress in order to decrease the size of the neck.

In order to make the dress flare at the bottom, I cut out irregular triangles from the rest of the wool sleeves. After making a slit in the hemline, I stitched the triangles to the dress. For an extra touch, I made flowers out of the leftover pink wool, added a pearl button I already had to each flower, and attached them to the front of the dress and the hat.

The hat was simply the sleeve of the large sweater. The shoulder end became the bottom of the hat. I stitched a diagonal line across the sleeve and cut off the extra. This gave it an elfin look, but I tacked the point down with the wool flower.

I was really happy with how it turned out.  I hope she likes it as much as I do!