School Clothes - Girl Style

I limited M's designing this year to two outfits, since she has too many clothes as it is. She very timidly told me that she wanted her school clothes this year to be "more rockerish". And as a brave new step for me, I let her pick out all the fabric. It was all hot pink, or black, and sparkly.

On the left: Drawing of what was to become a pink sparkly shirt that ties around the neck with black ribbon. It is actually a resubmission as I got it totally wrong last year and used a fabric with dots instead of sparkles. For pants, leggings with ruffles on the bottom.

On right: this one is a bit confusing, but she wanted a t-shirt embroidered with the drawing of the girl in sunglasses. (I'm pretty sure this is another ed emberly). Anyhow, then she wanted a black vest, and a jaggedy black skirt. Also a resubmission from last year, because, again, I got it wrong last year. She wanted it actually jagged as opposed to the implication of jaggedness. To be worn over jeans, but it's still too hot for jeans, so she is wearing it with the ruffled leggings. And I vetoed the black boots for now. An obscene amount of shoes already made that an easy decision.

For the leggings I just purchased some, and serged on the lacy ruffle. Embroidering that shirt took awhile because she requested more stars. HUGE thanks to my mother in law for literally slaving over that lined vest. I haphazardly assigned her the vest, thinking it would be easy, but it turned out to be like the hardest thing she's ever sewed (and that's saying something - she's amazing.)

So I learned a lesson that probably most good mothers have already learned. Let kids make their own decisions - within reason. It is totally reasonable that I could have let her pick out her own fabric last year, and I could have followed her a lot more literally. This year? She wears these clothes every day. She loves them, and is SO happy I let her have full control. They really are awesome.