film petit :: amélie

I am so excited to be the very first guest to join Kristin and Jessica in their Film Petit series!

In case you missed their Film Petit kick-off, they both sewed outfits inspired by The Life Aquatic, and they were amazing. Check them out here and here. This month’s movie is Amélie, which happens to be the first movie my husband and I saw together while we were courting back in 2002. Having watched it so long ago, all I really remembered about the movie was loving it, and it was so much fun to see it again and get inspired to sew.

Amélie has a penchant for anonymous good deeds, and one of my favorites is when she kidnaps her father’s beloved garden gnome and asks a flight attendant friend to photograph the gnome visiting landmarks of the world, hoping to encourage her father to follow his own traveling dreams. That traveling gnome was my sewing inspiration.

I had some Heather Ross gnomes from a Munki Munki nightgown, so I decided to turn them into little gnome Polaroids.

Our little gnome wasn’t quite as ambitious in his travels as Amélie’s – but he did make it to couple of our finest local landmarks.

Trader Joe’s:

The neighborhood swimming pool:

A picnic at the park

with a visit to the swings:

And finally he ended up on the pockets of a little dress for Lila.

I used this A-line dress pattern from Etsy, which I found via Stitched Together (Rachel recently made two great versions). It’s a great simple dress that you can embellish any way you like. I added pockets from the Oliver + S Ice Cream dress and triple machine-stitched the stripey pocket yokes,

then added my gnome Polaroids to the pockets. I’ve seen Polaroid quilt blocks pop up in a few places and always thought they’d be so much fun to create. They were!

I added running stitches around the neck and armholes.

And a gnome covered button to finish it off.

Our little gnome even got a hold of some mysterious photos of Amélie herself!

Where will he pop up next, you ask? At the fabric store, of course 🙂

Don’t forget to check out how Kristin and Jessica were inspired by Amélie….and thanks to both of them for letting me get in on the fun of this terrific series! I can’t wait to see what they have up their sleeves for next month!