I’ve always wanted to create adorable little baby dresses and rompers for Emmy, but I quickly realised that I didn’t want to spend my few spare minutes in a day in between feeds at the sewing machine when I had a newborn, and now she’s a toddler (how did that happen?)…well, sewing machines and nosy, boisterous little girls with grabby hands and sharp scissors and needles don’t mix! Nevertheless, I’ve still always had the dream of Emmy wearing gorgeous handmade clothing.
I came across Little Cottons on Instagram and completely fell in love with their beautiful designs. They mix classic clothing designs with cute, fun prints and patterns. It also really helps that they have stunning product photography.
The clothing from Little Cottons is all handmade to order which means that the turnaround time is longer than most sites you buy clothing from, so this meant that I had a wait of around a month between ordering and the clothes arrive. While I was constantly checking my emails for a dispatch confirmation, this is something I want to get more used to. Buying fast fashion is something that’s made me super impatient – I want things to arrive instantly the minute I’ve ordered them, which is dangerous. This really pays into
And I wasn’t disappointed when the package arrived, in fact, I was all the more excited from the anticipation that had built over the past few weeks. The quality of stitching and attention to detail is fantastic, and the fit on Emmy of this Rainbow Romper is perfect. I chose 12-18 months – she’s currently 15 months and usually wears 9-12 months or 12-18 months. There’s some room for her to grow over summer, it’s not too tight around the leg elastics, but the straps don’t fall off her shoulders like they do in some rompers she has. I’m secretly hoping it will fit her next spring/summer too, fingers crossed for us!
Onto the rest of her outfit, I’m stocking up on classic plain colour bodysuits to wear under patterned dungarees and rompers as well as little shorts at the moment. This one is from M&S and came as part of another matching dungaree set. The only problem is that she’s a bit of an animal so they get covered in mud, food and goodness knows what else very quickly. We often shop for basics like this at H&M too, particularly their organic range.
Her little shoes are basically my favourite thing ever right now. I can’t really say they’re her first shoes as she wore a little pair of autumnal baby booties back in October last year (although not for walking!) and I picked her up a pair of cute trainers in Tesco on our last outing before lockdown in a panic when I realised she was close to walking but we were about 24 hours away from lockdown! This pair of leather shoes is from Sass & Me – they’re the Conker Scallop T Bars and are so cute. The only problem is that they’re slightly too big – I ordered a size 4 as they had the hard soles, but I’m pretty sure she’s a size 3. Lockdown problems – we’ve never been able to get her feet measured, I was so looking forward to that! Ah well, that’s something to do in future instead! Nevertheless, they’re still wearable enough – she doesn’t fall over in them and they’re much lighter than her trainers which are very bulky and heavy.
Finally, I couldn’t help but pair them with a little pair of knee high socks. These are the pale pink open knit socks by the brand Condor bought at Willow & Ivy, both brands I discovered on Instagram too. I just adore babies and toddlers in knee high or frilled ankle socks (particularly with T bar shoes!) so I couldn’t resist these. We’ve got a couple more pairs too that are already in high rotation in Emmy’s wardrobe, although she’s barefoot around the house and garden 99% of the time right now!
This most certainly won’t be the last Little Cottons outfit you see Emmy wearing on the blog! I took the opportunity to order her several pieces while I was at it to last her through the summer and hopefully into autumn too, so keep your eyes peeled for more!
And finally, Emmy’s first doll features in these photos too! This is Lucia – she’s made by Miniland. We’ve noticed that Emmy has been really interested in trying to get herself (and us!) dressed in the past couple of months – trying to put slippers on Ben’s feet, pull my socks off, taking off her T-shirt bib at meal times and putting on her own shoes to go for walks. She’s also fascinated by faces lately – she often pulls her “Ooh!” face (see above!) then points at any nose, eye, mouth or ear she can find, whether ours, her own in the mirror, a frog’s nose in a book, her little piggybank’s eyes and her bunny’s ears, then pointing at her own. We thought a doll would be great for both of these fascinations to help her development, and we also love that this brand offer dolls in a variety of races that are also very detailed and anatomically correct. I’ve read recently around teaching even toddlers of her age about race, and I think this is a good start to opening up a conversation, even though she’s still very small.
Lucia is a little smaller than I imagined – the bigger size sounded like it would be too big for her to carry around yet, but maybe in future we can get her another bigger version of their dolls. We’re all very pleased with her though – every detail is thought of, even down to the newborn baby smell, she has a light vanilla fragrance! Emmy also loved her straight away – she climbed up onto the sofa with her, laid her down on top of the cushion then turned to shush us, signing that baby was sleeping! It’ll be interesting to watch how she interacts with her in future.
