Handmade with Love: Creative and Thoughtful Gifts

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One Special Dress

In 1955 Fiona Brown, then a college student in Scotland, sewed a hand-smocked toddler's summer dress as a project. "But when my daughter was born, it was Christmas time and she never fit into the dress in the summer," says Brown. So the yellow dress remained on a hanger for several more decades, until her youngest grandchild, Roan, turned 2. Brown gave the 55-year-old dress to her son, Duncan, and daughter-in-law, Judy Yeung-Brown, when they visited her in Manchester, England, last year. "It was perfectly preserved and older than my husband!" marvels Yeung-Brown, who lives in Queens, New York. The couple had tried for nine years to have Roan, making the gift that much more meaningful -- and it fit their daughter perfectly. "I think the dress waited for her," says Yeung-Brown.

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