Azriella's Girafarig Birthday Dress.

We love all things anime and yes that includes Pokemon!  Get ready for a sweet Girafarig inspired dress! YEAH!  

Disclaimer: this post contains affiliate links.  And while I did get the pattern for free, all the opinions are completely my own.

Earlier this month, someone turned 6! It has been a whirlwind of a month, what with birthdays x 2, visitors, sewing (per the usual), starting kindergarten, baby announcements, appointments galore... my head is still spinning! But don't worry: I'm passed my nausea-phase so I'll be fine :-)

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One thing was for sure: she wanted a Pokemon Dress.  The girl loves her some Pokemon!  It took a while for us to decide on a singular Pokemon (she kept picking out brown Pokemon with fur necks or Pokemon that come in a set of three...)

After an extensive search, she came to me and pointed out that she wanted a Girafarig dress.  After working out the physics of how to make that tail stand up, I was able to start drafting the outfit.

I am amazed at how long it's been since I self-drafted a dress!!!  I almost exclusively self-drafted all my garments last year!  But between all the glorious Japanese Sewing Books I've been sewing from and the most gracious offerings from my pattern designer friends, I just completely throwing something together from scratch fell to the wayside.  It was nice to be revisited by those little anxieties, and ups and downs and "will it work? gosh, I hope this works"...  

Let's get down to the elements

 Azriella's Girafarig outfit is comprised of three pieces plus shoes:

• A two tiered pleated peplum top with shoulder ties, pieced sweetheart bodice (to resemble Girafarig's spots), pink spikes down the back, side zipper, button on tail, hidden waist inseam pocket, and side waist sashes.

• A gathered, fishtail, circle skirt.

• Brown moleskin {affiliate link} Hosh pants (since I royally screwed up the original brown stretch satin leggings.) This is the only element that was not self drafted! And they fit and look perfect!

What's great about the outfit is that it can go from semi-dressy to play-time chic in a second by removing the fishtail skirt and unbuttoning the tail!  

I'd have to say the hardest part was figuring out the proper placement of the inseam pocket between the sewn in sashes, bodice and double peplum layers.  That took some braincells to make sure I didn't sew it in wrong!  

The yellow fabric is this ultra dreamy, soft and shimmery voile that I bought from fabric.com.

And the brown moleskin is from Fabric Depot, which is about five minutes from my house.

I really love the versatility of the outfit on top of the fact that it is fashionable and Pokemon! 

And knowing she needed a little pair of black ballet flats (to resemble Girafarig's hooves), I whipped these up in a jiffy right before we left for the shoot using my tutorial from before. But I did something a little different:  I added a 1/4" seam allowance to the inside top pieces (all the way around) and I made a little hem, making sure to clip the curve in the middle.  They look sooo good!  I think I'll be doing them like this from now on!  She ended up keeping them on for the rest of the day, and believe me, they passed the test!  Never fell off once and they barely looked worn at all!

She had a blast trying to be a Pokemon in the wild!  In the picture above she's pretending to leap around!

She loves her Girafarig outfit so much and that makes me happiest of all!  Can't believe my little girl is 6 years old, ya know?!  Makes me cry at how much she's grown up, especially in the last year!

We had lots of plans for things.  One was a birthday party for Azriella.  And despite our sending out invites a week in advance, we did not receive so many rsvps.  Jon and I blame it on the fact of her starting a new school that week.  So to make up for it, we took her to Oaks Park.  After two years in Portland, we'd never been to Oaks Park! It's like a permanent amusement park with a county fair feel located in Southeast Portland.

It was an amazing day!  New tradition even!  I think from now on instead of a birthday party since it's so close to the beginning of school, we're going to bring her to Oaks and then plan a Halloween party with friends later on!  She thinks that's a great idea!  

Infinite hugs and kisses to my first little chibi.  She amazes me every day and not a day goes by that I don't completely cherish her coming in to this world and changing my life forever.  She is my everything.