World book day – Tinny dress vintage style

When Rebecca from Dobbin’s bobbins contacted me to ask if I wanted to participate in her ‘World book day blog tour’ I was so surprised!
Due to my pregnancy I have to plan my sewing projects better than ever, but I gladly made room for this one.
After all it combines two passions of mine, sewing and reading, because the purpose was to sew something inspired by our favourite childhood book.
I didn’t have to think twice about it, the book I loved reading as a very young teenager was ‘Hoe trotskopje genas’ by To Hölscher.
It’s written in Dutch in 1926 and a rough translation of the title is:
‘Little Miss Vanity’s recovery’
The book belonged to my grandmother, my mother and now to me.
I hope my daughter will love the story as much as I did (and still do 🙂 )
In short, the book tells the story about a young girl, Coba, growing up in a very poor but loving family.
They have no money for new or fancy clothes, therefore the mother always tries to create something nice out of her old clothing for all of her children.
But for Coba, nothing is good enough and she is always ashamed by what she has to wear.
One day, she finds a golden necklace which she returns to the owner,a very rich and posh lady.
Because Coba shows so much resemblance to her daughter who passed away, she wants Coba to come and live with her.
With pain in their hearts the family accepts and Coba gets the rich life she dreamed of, with a well filled wardrobe.
A few months later, Coba receives the news that her father is very ill and rushes home.
However, her father doesn’t recognize her while wearing her expensive dress.
She quickly takes it off and puts her old coat on and it works, her father sees his sweet little Coba again and got better very soon.
She learns a very important lesson, family is much more important than appearance and she recovers from her pride and is proud to be part of her family.
I must have read the book about a 100 times because of the happy ending but also because of the beautiful pictures it features.
It inspired me to sew a dress for my daughter, with fabric I bought at a flea market.
I think I paid about 4 pounds for 5 metres of this beautiful, light fabric.
By doing this I want to show that you don’t need fancy or expensive fabric to create pretty pieces of clothing you can be proud of.
And that’s exactly what I always try to do in sewing.
*pictures are all without model, she has been down with the flu since 8 days, poor little thing*
Because I love the bookcover so much, I used it as my inspiration for selecting the pattern I wanted to work with.
I chose the Tinny dress by Straightgrain, without a doubt my number one dress pattern.
It features so many options (sleeves, collars, skirts,..) and the bodice fits my little girl perfectly.
This one has puff sleeves, a petal peter pan collar and circle skirt.
I love a rolled hem with light fabrics like this, it keeps the flow in it :-).
Sterre always loves the garments I make her.
When she whispers in my ear ‘Mummy, I am so proud of you’ after I make her a new dress, I simply melt!
She is so sweet :-).
I have a lot of fabric left so I am planning a new outfit for myself but first, a new baby :-).
Only 7 weeks to go!
Make sure to check out the other blogs that are participating in this blogtour, all of them made stunning outfits inspired by their favourite books!
And last but not least, Rebecca is hosting a giveaway with fantastic prices on her blog, especially for world book day, including the Tinny pattern I used here.
This link will take you there.
Hurry up and try your luck :-).
Thank you again Becci for having me on the tour!