Princess dress

Not long ago I mentioned to Frances that I was planning to make her a new dress - she's now at the age that she likes to have a bit of input in what I make her so went away saying she was going to be a fashion designer and came back a little while later having drawn the following picture:

It's nice, isn't it?  Frances is 5 (6 in September) and I find it really interesting how she draws things.  Anyway, back to the dress.  She explained that she wanted it to have puffy sleeves (like a princess has) and be really long so that it covers her feet (again as this is apparently how princesses wear their dresses), she also wanted a flower on the front and bows around the bottom.  No pressure Mummy!

I explained that I had some spotty fabric that her Grandma had brought us last time she visited, so we were going to make it out of that - but I'd do my best on the other design elements.

I don't think I did too bad... I used the bodice from the Absolutely A-line book, sleeves from Burda 2463 with added band cuffs and the rest is two rectangles inspired by this free Boho Maxi dress pattern. 

It's unlined apart from facing in the bodice,

And the fashion designer's reaction?

This is her doing her princess pose (we probably should have brushed her hair too - but I guess she's going for the tousled princess look).  She would still like bows and flowers, but I'm trying to stall on that... I wonder if I could find or make her a flower broach.

Camouflage

I said I'd make Frances another dress - I was going to make one from a pink spotty fabric I have with a nod towards being a Flamenco style dress - so ruffles and more ruffles and twirly.  Before I started figuring out what I was actually going to do I made the new curtains for the kids' bedroom.  There was a bit left over of the fabric and Frances decided that she would like a dress made from that.

I used the Absolutely A-line dress from the book of the same name.

I think Frances was hoping that she would be completely camouflaged against her curtains and was quite disappointed when she looked at the photos and found that we could actually see her.  She's still pretty well camouflaged though!

I was just about to sew the side seams when Frances announced that she'd like a bow on the back.

So, voila, a bow on the back.  I used a tutorial I pinned from pattern revolution, which I think has worked out well.

Here's a close up of the bow.  I stitched into place at the top, centre of the actual bow as it is quite heavy and was lolling about a bit.

I added a contrast facing, for a bit of fun.

I think the birds are all being pretty well behaved - they went to kindergarten with her today, so lets hope they haven't been flying around the school and annoying everyone.

Absolutely A-Line

My current sewing has meant that I've been doing some for Frances too - who can't resist making a dress for a 4 year old that refuses to wear anything other than dresses?  This phase seems to have been going on for quite some time, but I'm sure it won't last forever.  Anyway, I've got a book called Absolutely A-Line by Wendi Gratz.  It's basically a pattern for an A-line dress with 26 different ideas of versions to make.   I've made it a few times for Frances, the latest of which is here:

While I've been looking through my fabric stash recently, thinking what I can make, Frances saw this material and really liked it.  I think it came from my Nanna's shop (she used to have a Haberdashery shop in N. London) and has sat around for years (she sold the shop in the late 80s to give you an idea how long!).  My thought was to try to make her a maxi dress.  I made the bodice part as per the pattern and then just left the rest of the fabric uncut, gathered it onto the bodice and hemmed it.

Easy peasy and one happy girl.