Orange Dress with Dinosaur(s)

My daughter might only be two, but she has some pretty strong opinions about some things.  A while back I asked her, "Dorothy, would you like me to make you a dress?"  There are a couple of patterns I have been wanting to test out, but I wasn't really expecting much of a reaction either way from her.  She answered me with an enthusiastic, "Yes!  Orange dress with dinosaurs!"   How could I say no to such a fantastic request?  Every few days she would remind me, "Orange dress with dinosaurs?"  like she wondered where it was and why I had not come up with it yet.  One day while Malcolm was at school, she and I went to the fabric store to pick out some orange fabric for her dress.  If I dared to stop and look at anything that was not orange or had dinosaurs on it, she would get very irritated and would remind me of our mission.  We found some cute orange fabric that was fairly plain, but that would look nice with a dinosaur appliqued on it.

I have been wanting to make a pillowcase dress for a while and decided that this would be a good project for it.  I looked at a bunch of patterns, then decided to wing it.  My first attempt was cute, but way too big.  When I tried it on her, Malcolm looked at her and asked, "Dorothy, why are you wearing an apron?"  Since the bottom had all the detailing and would be nearly impossible to change, I cut the top off to make it shorter and tried again.  It isn't my favorite style of dress, but it does seem like it will be very cool and comfy for hot summer days.

I love a lot of things about this dress, but my favorite is how it so ultimately girly while not having a speck of pink anywhere and having a ferocious dinosaur right on the front.  It is such a contradiction, and yet, so very Dorothy.  I love the bright colors and how the over sized ric-rac resembles the dinosaur's teeth. 

The pattern I used for the dinosaur is a bit more aggressive than I would normally choose for a two year old, but it was the only dinosaur I already had in my collection.  I thought about buying one of the more baby looking ones, but instead, I just made this one out of polka dot fabric.  It's hard to be too terrifying when one is covered in polka dots.  The polka dot fabric was left over from a set I made last year for a one year old's birthday.

Overall, I am happy with how this one came out, and I never would have picked these particular fabrics to go together if Dorothy hadn't insisted on an orange dress with dinosaurs.  Thanks for the creative push kiddo.