Kids Clothes Week Summer 2013 is going on July 15-21.
Today I am sharing this pleated blue floral dress I sewed.
The pattern:
Oliver+S Fairy Tale Dress, size 5
The fabrics: blue floral cotton voile, lining is 100% cotton voile in white
The mods: Collarless. Sleeveless, I added bias trim around the armholes. I made the back a v-neck back. I used a lot more fabric for the skirt and placed many pleats. I added a grosgrain ribbon belt (and added
sewn belt loops). I also added on seam sides pockets using
Freshly Picked's free pocket pattern.
This dress is a knock off of a
$1500 floral print woman's dress by Antonio Marras. There are pleats on the woman's bodice, but after studying it, I realized that the pleats are to accommodate for the woman's curves. Since the girl's bodice didn't require pleats, I didn't add them.
To make the ribbon belt I used 26 inches of grosgain ribbons and 3.5 inches for the bow. The white ribbon is 1 inch wide, the bright blue ribbon is 3/8 inch wide. I simply topstitched the blue ribbon onto the white ribbon. The ends of the belt are folded over .25 inch and sewed down. I added 1.5 inches of velcro on the 2 ends of the belt. That white and blue bow reminds me of the Finnish flag.
There are 16 pleats in front and 12 pleats in back. The pleats are about 1 to 1.25 inches deep. I used about 110 inches of fabric for the skirt which is more than double what the pattern calls for which is 52.5 inches so the skirt is a super full and twirly.
My daughter's request is that her dresses have pockets and have twirly
skirts. I usually can accommodate one of those requests, but this one
has both! She is super pleased!
