yeah, I'm here again...

Oh for Pete's sake.  

I'm back on Blogger... after not being able to post now I suddenly can!?!???  Not sure what is going on, but I really hope this scenario doesn't change again.  

I just wanted to share a dress I made for Little D a couple weeks ago.  It's a dress pattern from the Ottobre 3/2012, Hollywood Cerise.  The fabric I chose was something I had been hanging on to since last year, just waiting for the right dress pattern to come along.  I bought it from my lqs, and that surprises me because usually their selection is more blenders and batiks, not bright and modern.  The fabric feels a lot like linen and the weft and warp threads are different colours (if that made any sense).

I made the dress a size bigger than D so that she can wear it, hopefully, through next year.  I used the length from size 110 and the rest of the pattern I traced a size 104.  D is about 100cm tall so the dress is plenty long, and she is also a skinny little girl, so it turned out wider under the arms than she needed.  That's okay though, I just took it in a little under the arms and I can always let that out later.  Plus now the dress has more of an a-line shape.

The only thing I don't really like is the pockets.  I am thinking of taking them off and making gathered round bottomed pockets.  Much cuter.

I also changed the back of the dress.  The original patterns calls for a placket all the way down the back with buttons, but I didn't want to have all those buttons there, and, well, why make so many button holes if you don't have to?

I cut the back from one piece instead of two, eliminating the extra room for the folded placket.  Then I sewed the dress together and added a partial placket that gave enough room for her head and arms to move comfortably in and out of the dress.  

From the outside, I am pleased with how the modified placket turned out, but the inside was trickier because of the facing and so it's a bit amateur looking on the inside.  In hindsight, I should have made the placket first and then sewed the facing and the sides.  

Next time I guess.

D loves her new dress and was quite excited that I was finally making one for her!  Since I've been sewing all these little things for the Urban Mommy Expo, she keeps seeing all these clothes and asking me if it is for her.  So when I started on this dress, I could say finally say yes.