Peppermint Candy Dress

I was planning to skip this week because I wasn’t coming up with anything inspired by candy and I refuse to sew something just to have an entry.

But then I was on a work trip to Texas and my mind started making some connections.  Arden’s first favorite candy was mints.  The swirly kind you get as you’re leaving a restaurant.  It got to the point that I bought a bag to keep in my car so I could just hand her one instead of trying to put her off until I could dig through my purse or our candy stash at home.  Halloween/Easter/Valentine’s Day candy lasts months and months around here.

We’ve done tie-dying a couple of times as a family craft and the spirals you can make by twisting the fabric and then sectioning off pie-shaped areas reminded me of those candies.

So I picked up some white jersey, busted out my ball-point and twin needles and got to work as soon as I got home from Texas.  The long sleeved dress is self-drafted using a similar dress as a guide but I added length to accommodate Arden’s recent growth spurt.  This girl grew like two inches over the summer!

I used a little bit of Rit Dye in fuchsia I had left over from a dye job where I was custom mixing to get a peachy coral color.  To make the spiral pattern tie-dye, you wet the garment and then find the spot from where you want the spirals to radiate.  Then twist, twist, twist until you have a “puck” of material.  Tie on the rubber bands into pie sections and then squirt the dye into alternating sections.  The jersey isn’t 100% cotton and I think I diluted my dye a little too much, but overall I love the effect.

First stop was to our local candy store to pick up some… you guessed it – mints!  I was planning to take a majority of the photos there, but two kids in a candy store was a little too much like two kids in a candy store.  I also think we were preventing other people from browsing for their goodies so we quickly purchased our mints and beat it out of there.

I had scoped out this little pocket park just up the road from our house (and the candy store) and I think it might be my new favorite location for photos.  Cool old brick walls, nice green grass, perfect lighting and less than a mile from our house?  Perfection!

I styled it a little with a length of clear vinyl to mimic the wrapper on the peppermints and layered a skinny belt of mine over top.  I used my scrapbooking embellishment punch to add a few more belt holes in the correct position and it worked like a charm!  I can’t tell the new holes from the original.  Sharing clothes with my daughter has officially begun.

Oh, and the hair was all Arden’s idea!  I asked her how she wanted it done and she said “in five twisties”.  Okay…  I think it worked pretty well for this twisty/swirly photo shoot, don’t you?  Perhaps a little Bjork-esque, but I think Bjork would rock this dress!