Blessed.

Oh.my.gosh.  I am dying right now.  

So, in our church we have a tradition that the Father (or sometimes Grandfather) gives a new baby a special blessing during our Sacrament meeting.  Traditionally babies wear all white, but I kind of wanted to go against that.  Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the tradition, the other four kids wore complete white, but for some reason I couldn't get this out of my head.  I actually was picturing a brown or gray linen, but I couldn't find the "right" one, so I went with an ivory linen for the bottoms.  If I had more time I am sure I could have found something online, but I had less than a week to figure something out... but I am in love. 

Side note, but I pretty much learned to sew because I wanted to make the twins blessing dresses.  I taught myself while I was pregnant with them and even figured out how to size down and adjust a pattern in just a few short months.  If you are interested, there is a picture on Flickr as it was pre-blogging days.  Sewing satin and ruffle fabric wasn't easy or fun in the early days, ha! 

I am obviously obsessed with the Oliver + S Lullaby Layette Bodysuit, so that was a no-brainer that I would use it somehow in this outfit.  But I wanted something more, something special.  A while back someone (I think Sarvi?) mentioned how darling it would look with a collar, I definitely agreed and had been thinking about how to make that happen.  Well, guess what?  This was the kick in the pants I needed to get it figured out.

I used the basic shape of the Sketchbook collar, but made some adjustments being the bodysuit is a size 3 month and the smallest Sketchbook is 6 month, plus the necklines are different sizes.  I used a crisp white shirting poplin and the collar is almost too stiff even though I used a really light interfacing.  Oh well.  It could still use some adjusting, but I am pretty happy with it.

The suspender shorts, aren't they completely adorable?! They are from here.  I can't vouch for the instructions because I didn't like they way you were instructed to put them together, so I did my own thing... Also, the waistband was 1/2" too big and the pattern calls for 3/4" elastic but I could only get 1/2" to fit, which was annoying.  But oh my gosh aren't they cute?!

And for the bow tie I just used rectangles and my memory from when I had made one for Jack earlier in the year.

The shoes are completely impractical and silly, but (shall I say it again?) adorable!!

So Mr. Sam is ready for his first big shindig (tradition is also to serve a luncheon after the meeting) and I am just so happy with how this all turned out!