Stash Clean-up

A woman asked me to sew some dresses for her young granddaughter. We'll call her Daisy. I'm not sure of Daisy's age, I'll have to ask again when I see her again, but I think she's about 7. My only rules for the dresses were that they have to have some sort of sleeve, and they can't be "too short." I think no shorter than knee length sounds about right for an elementary school girl. I've decided that I should probably use up whatever fabric I can from my stash (several LARGE storage bins and an overstuffed shelf) before buying new fabric.

So, her first dress will be Simplicity 7462, a pretty party dress in some fuchsia taffeta. I'd ordered this fabric for another project and it was much too bright, but perfect for a fancy tea party dress.No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the lighting to show what color the fabric actually is. It looks red in the pictures. It's bright pink, and slightly iridescent. Depending on the angle, it will look varying shades of hot pink, sometimes purplish.

I wasn't able to measure Daisy myself, but her Nana gave me one of her dresses that fit well. Judging from the measurements of the dress, I cut a size 10. I didn't make many changes so far. For the ties, instead of cutting two and folding them in half, I cut four and sewed the top/bottom and ends to make a fatter bow. I also added pockets on the side seams. My gramma always said everything was better with pockets. :)

Progress shots!

The front of the dress has these really neat pleats. To make them, the pattern piece is pretty funny looking. It's got all these strips on the top, that the edges get sewn together, and the bottom of the stitching line creates inverted box pleats on the outside.

Here's the front piece, with the left side pinned

Completely pinned pleats

I've sewn together as much of the dress as I can without going to the fabric store in the morning. The outside is completely together, and the bodice lining is sewn, but I didn't have enough of the fabric to make the skirt lining, and I don't have a proper colored zipper on hand. I think I will also add lace to the collar and the sleeve bands like the envelope suggests.

Front of the dress, minus sleeves and lace collar.

Back of the dress. Love dresses with big bows.

I should be able to get to the store sometime this weekend, and it'll be done shortly after that. :D