My Victorian Miniature Dress Ornaments Free E-Patterns

I have been in love with beautiful little girl dresses my whole life. I have to blame my grandmother "Dee" for this as she used to buy me the most beautiful little girl dresses. They were frilly, flouncy, lacy, filled with tulle underskirt dresses and I just loved them. I could stand and look for hours at my dresses.  The dresses I loved - the tulle not so much!

I, of course, wasn't allowed to touch them - I'd get them dirty. They were for our best occasions which I was hoping would be that day or the next day just so I could wear the dresses. Inevitably, a holiday or special occasion would occur and I would get to wear one of my dresses.

I'd tell my mother I just wanted to put them on for a few minutes.  Truth be told I wanted to put them on and just twirl around and around and watch them poof out!

I could just twirl and twirl and twirl in them. Around and around I'd go.  Until I got dizzy and fell down and, you guessed it, the dresses would get dirty.

My mother always knew I'd get the dresses dirty and then she'd have to wash and iron them before the special occasion I might be wearing them to so she always said "no."

I never understood then why she'd say "no."  I do now, but didn't back then so I'd pout for the rest of the day.

In our family room we had some steps right next to a sofa. When I was wearing one of these dresses I would love to stand on the steps and then jump down into the sofa.

As I did my dress would fly up in the air like a parachute and then come landing down on me.  I loved it and thought this was a lot of fun!

Of course, everyone could see my frilly underwear, leotards, slip, etc. when I did this - but, only for the briefest of moments.

My Grandmother would "tsk, tsk" and would give me one of those looks of "that's not a lady like thing to do!" I'd just look back at her and smile. I just had to be me.

And, then I'd look over at my Mother and she'd be smiling. She knew I just had to be me, too.

My Grandmother was born in 1896 and she definitely had a closet of beautiful Victorian dresses when she was growing up, like the one shown in the picture to the right.  Unfortunately, she passed away in 1975.

While she is not here with me now she left an indelible impression on me, my life, and my creativity. She is largely responsible for my love of Victorian dresses.

When I was knee-high she gave me a very old print of Godey's Fashions for August 1870 that belonged to my great, great Aunt Flossie (the first female in my family to graduate from college). I was captivated with the dresses and forever hooked. That was the start of my love of Victorian dresses.

When I was designing some of my doll patterns I decided I wanted to design some Victorian dress ornaments.  I thought they would be cute and could be hung up as decorations for most of the year.