this weekend we prepared for and celebrated easter. there were holiday traditions old and new.
saturday we colored our eggs, baked some cupcakes and made margaret a new spring dress. it all came together and by sunday morning. margaret woke to find that yes, the easter bunny had been here and as he did every year since i was a kid, he had hidden an egg in her new easter shoes... (and if we had big living room drapes in this house as my parents did in the 70s i would have hidden one under there too to further keep traditions alive)
something untraditional that i did was to make margaret her easter dress. i'm not sure when i decided to do this, or how i even arrived at the final dress. it all sort of just happened organically, just one thing leading to another and a dress unfolding in the process... i originally had been planning to make the dress out of some vintage material i have been holding onto - big green and yellow flowers, probably old curtains - which i thought was very springlike. so i picked up some green cotton for the inside lining. when i got home i realized that the new green cotton matched the green on her new shoes. so i decided to scrap the flowered dress idea and let the green fabric stay on the outside of the dress. switching gears to now make a simple green one. maybe with a cool pocket for holding easter treasures? so in trying to match the shoes, i pulled out some natural colored antique linen (which my grandmother and aunt had just stumbled across and given to me -apparently it was my great grandmothers that she had gotten from italy, perhaps something she even brought over here with her). it was really hard to cut into that linen, so i cautiously embroidered it first, took a deep breath then cut out the pocket... the rest of the easter dress came together quickly,the front, the back, the hem, etc... finishing it off with 2 vintage greenish buttons in time for it to be worn on sunday with the new shoes. (once the beet colored egg was collected) it was so nice to have discovered the old family materials like the linen and buttons to include in the process of this dress. they just made it a bit more special and sentimental, and for a day of traditions and family what could be more perfect?
