Christening Clothes

 I took a short break from my costuming to make a christening outfit. My husbands sister gave birth to a little girl last week. I took this as the perfect opportunity to make a christening dress!

Short sleeved batise christening gown with matching bonnet.

I have been wanting to make one for a while, but none of my friends and family having babies as of late had their children baptized , and the gown my Charlotte wore for her christening was made by her grandmother. So now was my opportunity.
I'm not very religious myself but I love christening dresses they are so sweet and precious and are all that remains in modern culture of the adorable long white dresses infants wore from about the mid 18th century up until the first world war or so.

Infants gown ca 1815

The dress is made of lovely semi sheer cotton batiste,with tiny puff sleeves and an extra long skirt. It is trimmed with vintage lace from the stash and has antique lace applique.

Applique detail in bodice front.

 The Applique was cut from an Edwardian doily I got from a thrift store a while ago. It had several holes and tears so I didn't feels so bad about cutting it up. It is lovely soft lace the kind they don't seem to make anymore. In addition to the the lace I got some sweet hand tatted shamrocks form a very talented lady on ebay. http://stores.ebay.com/TATTING-BY-DOVE-COUNTRY?_trksid=p4340.l2563

Adorable hand tatted shamrocks!

 I decided on the shamrocks cause my sister in laws husbands family is Irish, well half of it is Irish the other half is Korean, but we'll just ignore that for now. Besides what does one put on a Korean christening gown?  There are 4 rows of pintucks at the hem with a row of  shamrocks and lace flowers between them. I also put some dainty cotton lace trim over the stitching on the pintucks .

Pintucks at the hem with more applique and shamrocks.

 I really have been doing too much period sewing cause i feel the need to hide machine stitching even on modern garments!
Of course I also made a matching bonnet.

matching bonnet

Bonnet back detail with more lace Applique.

  With more lace and shamrocks and buttery soft silk bonnet ties.

Bonnet tie detail, vintage lace and  dainty shamrock.

 I'm very happy with how this turned out I think it's some of my best work. Now if I only had such passion about making that 1930's dress that needs to be finished!