A couple of weeks ago I posted a tutorial for some bow ties that I made for my two boys, I mentioned there that I was making them for a wedding and that I was making the dresses for my girls as well.
The wedding was last weekend so, as usual, I was finishing up the dresses last week. The colors were a bright blue and yellow. I decided that I wanted the two little girls dresses to match but to have my oldest daughter's dress be different. I wanted it to be a style that looker a little older, not so toddlerish. My sister-in-law, the bride, said she really wanted some yellow because she was worried no one would have yellow so I decided to do the two little girls in yellow. I was glad I did because they were the only two of the nine nieces and nephews to be in yellow.
I used patterns from the store, I am not talented enough to try to make my own patterns. The two that I used were ones that I already had so I either bought them at some point or they were given to me by someone. I think they are both still available but I am not 100% sure about that.
The blue dress was made using Easy Stitch 'n Save M4746. My daughter is 6 and I think I made a size 5 (I know the picture shows a pattern for 7-12, I have two different sizes of this pattern and couldn't find the smaller one to take a picture). Some of the pieces were already cut out in that size and I thought it should work for her and it ended up fitting her perfectly.
I made view A without the trim. Since I knew I was going to make it solid blue I wanted there to be something interesting so I chose the view with the petal sleeves. I had never made petal sleeves before but I was really happy with how they turned out. The blue fabric I used was some clearance fabric from Walmart that was only $1.50 a yard. It was the perfect color and it was thin enough that it was nice and flowy without being too thin. It worked really well. They lady that cut it for me asked what I was making and when I told her it was a dress she looked at me like I was crazy but it was perfect. I bought a flower pin, also from Walmart, that I pinned on the front. It definitely was not the highest quality, the pin broke off before the reception was over, but it made it through pictures which is probably the most important part.
I didn't sew the zipper in right because I was being lazy and in a hurry, I thought it wouldn't matter because no one would see it and now I am putting pictures of it on my blog for anyone to see, I guess that wasn't so smart of me. When I am sewing for someone else I am much more of a perfectionist but if I am sewing for myself or my kids I am much more likely to fudge things a little or let some things go that I would normally pick out and redo.
I think my favorite and least favorite part of this dress was the skirt. I loved the look of the long circle skirt. I do not love hemming long circle skirts. It ended up not being to bad, I just made sure to do a really narrow hem. I loved the way it hung and my daughter loved that it was so twirly. I was very pleased with how this dress turned out.
The yellow dresses were made using NewLook 6448. I made view A but made it with the gathered sash (like the picture on the cover, not the drawing). I made a size 2 and a size 4 for my 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 year olds. They were a little big and I probably could have gone down a size for each of them in the bodice but I was glad to have the length that I did in the skirts. I think if I had gone down a size on the skirt they may have been shorter than I wanted.
The yellow was some bright yellow eyelet that had been given to me, I had just enough to cut out both dresses. There were only scraps left when I was done. The blue sash was the same fabric as the other dress, I also used that fabric to make the boys bow ties, and I used white muslin to line it.
I didn't make the loops to hold the sash, and as you can tell in the picture above I probably should have. I have mixed feelings about this pattern. I thought the dresses turned out cute on the girls but I absolutely hated the sleeves on this pattern. They were really hard to put in and not catch something that you weren't supposed to. I used my seam ripper way more often than I would have liked while putting in those sleeves. The pattern says it is easy but for that reason I would not recommend it for someone who does not have a lot of experience.
In the end I thought everything turned out looking nice, the girls looked cute in their dresses and the boys looked good in their bow ties.
Thank you
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