sewing BEE (see what I did there?)

I think I have mentioned in passing a few times that I was planning to make a couple of outfits for Dulcie?  Well, here is the lovely fabric that I bought for the project.  It's not like I needed fabric (God knows I have enough vintage sheets etc to clothe that girl for life!) but once I saw these in Mandors, I just had to have them.

Look at these bees!  Even though I knew such an obvious and directional pattern would make the already daunting task at hand that bit trickier, there was no way I could have left this fabric behind.

 And this one is just so pretty and of a time that I love.  It looks a bit washed out here (I took these photos on my phone for ease of blogging from my parents' house) but is a gorgeous deep, dull green in real life.

 This is the pattern I'm using.  I'm going to make the romper suit (top middle) from the bee fabric.  If it turns out insanely wonderful, I'll probably make the same from the green fabric because I think that would make a cute romper too, but the original plan was to use the green to make the dress (bottom right) so I may still stick to that.

Because I might want to use this pattern again when Dulcie is a bit bigger, I thought I should trace the pattern pieces rather than cut them straight out.  Of course, this is really just another added stage where things could go wrong...  I traced most of the pieces yesterday, until I ran out of greaseproof paper.  Hopefully I'll finish that and cut out the fabric pieces today.  I'm so scared about cutting into the fabric, but I keep telling myself to calm the heck down.  Really, what is the worst that could happen?  If I make a hideous mistake, I can always use the fabric for some other smaller projects and, if the worst came to the worst, I could buy more - that's where new fabric has the edge over vintage/recycled, I guess.  My hope is that if I have the pieces all cut out before I get back to Glasgow then I'll be far more likely to make a start on this before summer is over.  I've never sewed clothes from a proper pattern before and really have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm hoping this project will be the start of something and may leave me brave enough to attempt making something for myself to wear.  Wish me luck!

UPDATE:  It's now Thursday evening and I have cut out all the pieces of fabric for the bee romper suit and have marked on whatever I need to, ready to start sewing when I get back to Glasgow.

Some great things:
1) I have a fair amount of the lovely fabric left over - hurrah! - and a little project in mind for it.
2) Now that all the pieces are ready to go, the challenge seems totally achievable.  I've read through the instructions and (famous last words) the assembly looks more straightforward than some of the soft toys I have made in the past.  Maybe I can do this?!
3) I'm getting very excited at the thought of having achieved my clothes-making goal at last.  I've wanted to do this for years!

A dose of reality:
1) I'm getting ahead of myself here and there is still scope for things to go wrong.
2) I'm not sure when I'll get round to doing the assembly - it's much easier here in Elgin where I have people on hand to distract Dulcie and big, clean spaces to work in.
3) I am petrified this isn't going to fit Dulcie and I will have to find someone smaller to give it away to and then I will actually cry.

Oooh!  Exciting!  Watch this space!