Reindeers,Squirrels&Bears

If you remember I sew two toddler dresses. This ReindeerDress is my own design. If you take a closer look, you can see I modified the wrist parts after the last post. I prefer it in this way. It is more practical when the toddler wants the sleeves up. These reindeer short leggins are from PaaPii's Pattern Book for Children with my own modification -similar as with the dress' wrists.

I made more leggins with full length by using PaaPii's Pattern Book for Children. For all these toddler clothes you can see in this post, I used Finnish design Metsola fabrics. I love their cute animal prints.

I promised you with Mice&Reindeers to show you an easier way to make the wedges for the dress. And here it is. This is a design from PaaPii's Pattern Book for Children with my own modification. You just make the horizontal cut by the waistline. I made the modification also to the wrist parts with this dress.

Here they are together: a pretty bear set for a toddler. Metsola doesn't sell all the time their fabrics out; only in special campaigns.

I was informed about their campaign this winter by my students. That's how I managed to shop these pretty fabrics. Only negative experience was that they sell them only in 1 m pieces. If you need 2 meters it comes in 2 pieces. Also these leggins are from PaaPii's Pattern Book for Children.

This squirrel dress is my own design. It is very easy but needs more fabric than the reindeer dress pictured above.

I think it is a beautiful set with full of actions. I do like squirrels and find amusing to watch them. They are excellent creatures also in problem solving tasks if the reward is their favorite food!

These aren't only beautiful new clothes. If you take a closer look to the design you notice despite they are at some size, they are actually a design of which the child doesn't grow out fats. Child can use them even they'd be too big size and even the child gets more length, the designs are still usable for playground use. When a child can wear the piece of garment for a longer period of ones life, it brings lower the environmental load of their footprint.

This kind of clothes with animal/nature prints are also educative items to rise up a child level conversation to give them the educative information about the nature, sustainability and biodiversity. A good way for environmental and sustainable education for children is to bring the nature closer to their daily lives. Wild animal and forest themed clothes are one way to bring nature into their lives despite they'd live in the cities. 

In Sámi culture you rise up your children by stories. To a small child you can easily tell if a person throws a piece of a trash on the street or nature, a curious animal can eat it and come very ill, and because it is a wild animal it can't get to the vet or human care easily to feel better. After that the child can choose where to put their own pieces of trashes; take it to a trash bin or throw on the street/nature. To be a supportive adult, carry always something with you where you can keep the trashes until finding a trash bin. 💕

Mice & Reindeers

This cute little 110 cm size mouse dress has the same pattern at its basics whichs this ToddlerSnowBallDress has also. Designed by PaaPii. If you take a look you can notice I made more wedges. I added them in the middle front and back. Wedges made like this are a bit tricky to sew. I have one more coming up and with it I will show how it is easier to sew them.

Also this reindeer dress is 110 cm size. It is my own design. It is cute too and it is made of the left over material of my own dress. I will show that to you later.

(Both fabrics are Finnish design Metsola fabrics.)

ToddlerSnowBallDress

I sew also this amazing SnowBallDress by using PaaPii's Pattern Book for Children. By using the same pattern I sew also ToddlerMerinoWoolDress. In this dress I used all the parts: also the sleeves and wedges. Also this is 110 cm size. 

Also this has home made bias tape decoration so I crated similar slit at back with sew-on-snaps than I did with the merino wool dress. It is a velvet like jersey fabric with fingertip sized balls. It really was not the easiest fabric I've sewn. I have no idea about the manufacturer because I bought it years ago at local fabric shop that doesn't exist anymore. 

The design is simple and changes a lot depending a lot of it what material you use and how you sew it. This dress was the biggest success of the Yule 2025! 

It really is not Elsa's dress from Frozen but has been called that since it was completed. Somehow it seems a dress Elsa from Frozen would wear! 

ToddlerMerinoWoolDress

Oh where have I been these 16 days since my last post? At home. We received longed and wished welcome visitors to stay over YuleTide 2025 since early morning 14.12.2026. We still have some all the way until 4.1.2027 but now I am at home alone with the dogs so I found some time to chat with you my dear reader. 

See the picture above. There's one of gifts I've made for Yule 2025. It is 100 % merino wool decorated with Yule themed cotton fabric and home made bias tape. I love home made bias tape and recommend it to all because by it you really can create personalized details for your sewing. Here you can find HomeMade BiasTape-tutorial.

It is a very simple pattern I modified from PaaPii's Pattern Book for Children. Yes, it is a Finnish trade mark but they actually sell it also in English. I made this dress from the book: I just did it without the sleeves and wedges. Because I use cotton bias tape I created a slit at back. I made this in the size 110 cm. 

Here you can see it all better. For the fastening I used sew-on-snaps. I left 1 cm loose bias tape to make it easier for big adults to crab on and help with the dress.