Finally! McCalls 4424

Three years ago, I fell in love with McCalls 4424.  But Gracie was a big baby, and by the time I found it, she was almost grown out of it, so making it just wasn't worth the effort.  Nikki is a smaller baby, so she still has a few pounds to gain before she outgrows this pattern!

I've had this dress cut out for three weeks, but it's been one thing after another.  And Nicole kept bringing me the pieces... until I started sewing it together yesterday and she started throwing pieces in the trash can!

 The weather seems to be getting unpredictable this year, so I snitched the shrug from Simplicity 2375 and made it in matching colors.  Normally, she'd be fine this time of year, but we seem to be seesawing between chilly and hot, so I thought a bit more coverage wouldn't hurt.  Hopefully, she won't grow out of this before fall and winter truly arrive!  (And if she waits to grow more, and it gets cold, we can always pop a blouse underneath.)

As I said before, I used the green and white leftovers from Richard's frog.  The shrug helps.  Honestly, the back is the cutest part of this pattern--the front is a bit blah... which is why I added a frog applique!

I really think the dark green of the shrug balances out all of the white, and the pop of bright green from the frog applique works pretty well.  The worst part of this was that Nicole was having a mischievous day.  She's such a sweet baby normally, but yesterday the sweetness was overruled by that imp known as curiosity!    All kids have their days, and yesterday was hers!  I was just lucky that the straps and bows were easy to get out of the top of the kitchen trash and didn't get any ick on them because we took out the trash right before she got here!

I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of her wearing this one, though.  I finished it at ten last night and she was home asleep.  See what I mean about the shrug, though?  It needs that block of color.

The diaper cover is green, and it was pretty much the only challenge here.  I've seen complaints about the pattern on Pattern Review, but it seemed straightforward to me.  :)  My biggest problem was that I, um, cut creatively to make the most of my fabric and fell about 1/2" short on the diaper cover.  So it's got a slightly shorter rise and is a little less poofy that then original pattern.

That's what the big bit of green is in this picture.  I also wanted the bows to stand out instead of blend in, so it was green for those!  I considered making the centers white, but decided that if it was a tied bow, it would be all one color, so these needed to be one color, too.  I was lucky enough to dig out four matching white buttons from my stash.  I've got about $10 in this one, and most of it is from the applique!