New Dress: Black and Purple / Strap Sleeves

So now that my sister has moved out and Holly has taken over the downstairs as a second playroom I carved out a small corner of the guest room to be my sewing area.  There sits a desk where I can keep my sewing machine set up and have space to keep all of my sewing supplies.  The room is shared by a guest bed filled with stuffed animals and a cloths hanging area filled with all of holly's dress-up cloths, a dresser filled with dress-up accessories and a few drawers for myself filled with gift wrapping supplies.

So we ventured out to Jo-Anne Fabrics and went shopping for material to make our first dresses.  We had some coupons that I had to use and they had good sales.  We found several soft flannel types materials that were only 2.99$ a yard, I only need a yard for a dress.  A few other we picked that were on red tag special and they were 4-6$ there was a fancy pink brocade that I just had to get for 9.99$ but I had a 50% off coupon to use for that one.  We got a lot and it was fun.

When we got home I had to figure out where to get started for our first dress.  Collars being one of my least favorite part, I found a dress of Holly;s that had ribbon straps and a simple gathered collar along the ribbon, it was an easy hem and I wouldn't need to make sleeves, another not favorite part of mine.

So this dress is in three sections, the top layer with a low waisted hem attaching to the skirt which is lightly pleated about three times on each side.  Finally there is a doubled ruffle, rather then having a bottom seem I doubled over the ruffle so it is puffy and adds volume to the skirt, since it is the same length around as the skirt I did a double pleat.  This created a neat little bubble as the bottom was gathered in slightly more then the top.  It helped to flip the ruffle out and add volume to the skirt. 

But alas it didn't fall just right, this in part to the fact that I actually did a poor job at picking fabric and not one in the bunch had any stretch.  For fear of fit and lack of pattern everything was slightly big.  So I made a ribbon which I attached 1/2 way up the top creating tension with the low waist.  Tying this in the back allowed the top to be gathered while the bottom bowed prettily.  I loved the affect and so I declared the piece done before I ended up lover working it.

Its sloppy but Holly likes it and I am happy with my first project.  I worked on it over two evenings for about  1-1.5 hours each while Holly helped me, practiced cutting fabric straps, played dress-up colored (all of our art supplies and play dough is also downstairs now) and worked on writing her letters.  When Daddy came home for the evening he came down to keep us company too until Holly was ready for bed.  It was fun.