February Dress

So Miss C has been nagging asked me to make her a dress for ages, the clients requirements were :- twirly dress and had a bow.  Off we went to the fabric shop and she chose this……

Wow what bright colours and the combination!  You can’t tell so much on the picture but the spots kinda dance before your eyes!  Anyhoo twirly skirt sounded like a circle skirt to me so using Pattys worksheet and my husbands brain I tried working out the size skirt I could make.  We quickly realised that it was limited by the width of the fabric (as long as you didn’t want to piece the skirt) so that sorted that out but as I wanted to make a dress I would need to make a bodice first, measure that and use those measurements rather than her waist measurements.  Miss C now has a hand-made-hand-me-down from Miss M so I decided to use that pattern as the bodice shape.  As its more of an empire line I extended the bodice by 1” and made it up, it was lined inside with white cotton, I topstitched all the edges to stop the lining rolling (anyone have any idea how you can understitch such as small bodice?  I couldn’t even think about getting it under the machine) what I should have done as well was to trim the lining so that it can’t roll forward, next time….
Once the bodice was completed I needed to work out the waist measurement, taking into account the seam allowance for the zip.  I had decided it do a hand-picked zip mainly because I would have a waist seam, neckline and ribbon to match up and I didn’t feel machine stitching it would make that easy.  I also wanted to try it out, why not use more couture style techniques on kids clothes!  So I measured the waist and this time hubby wasn’t around (some one has to earn the money to buy fabric round here!) so I worked it out myself!  Well you can guess what's coming next can’t you……  I cut out the donut shape, cut the back seam to put the zip in, and pinned the bodice to the skirt, by the time I got the end of the bodice I had about 3” of extra fabric!!!  I have no idea how that happened but I just hacked it off and pretended it never happened!  I guessed in a full circle skirt it was wasn’t going to show……..

and it didn’t!

How cute it that?  Its a perfect twirly dress for a little girl.  I haven’t hemmed it yet as I’m waiting for it to drop (although tbh on such a small skirt I don’t think it will be a problem but better to be same than sorry).  Miss C tried it on and she loved it, a full circle is certainly very twirly.  I’ll get an action shot of her soon.

The back matches perfectly and I even matched the thread for the ribbon! 

Inside is neat, all edges are either contained in the bodice or overlocked.  I’ve added my label as this is something I’m proud of!  My only concern is the ribbon as its satin rather than grosgrain, (they didn’t have the right colour) I just hope it holds up to washing and wearing….
Now I know that you are thinking, “Hang on Louise, aren’t you supposed to be making a dress for yourself?”  Well you’re right and I did try…. I started making

but all I seem to have made was a big pink sack!  I added some width to the hip and now its very deformed, that same problem I had on Januarys Dress so I think I need to look a bit more carefully at what I’m doing.  So I’m going to count this as February Dress as maybe I’ll revisit  2406 later in the year. 
I’ve signed up for Susan Khalje Couture Dress Course on Craftsy so maybe that will next months dress although now I’ve made a circle dress I think I want one for myself and add it to Burda 101 bodice.