April has managed to be a month full of inspired sew-alongs. First off, the Stash busting group theme is “Vibrant color“. I’m pretty sure these dresses couldn’t be any more vibrant. Secondly, The Monthly Stitch theme is “doubles/twins”. The most important reason for cupcake-shaped dresses, however, is Sew Dolly Clackett.
I love the aesthetic Roisin has going on her blog, all swishy skirts and fun prints. Her upcoming nuptials and the associated sew-along were the perfect reason for me to finally sew up this quilting cotton that I originally had about 8 yards of, most of which has been sitting in my stash since Guinevere was this (pre-blog) size.
My dress bodice is the By Hand London Anna Dress bodice. The skirt is 4 widths of fabric gathered up nice and tight.
I wanted Guinevere’s dress to match mine as closely as possible, but By Hand London doesn’t size for six year-olds. I remembered that vintage Simplicity 3295 had kimono sleeves, so I took that pattern and hacked it all up. I left off collar, waistband, belt, and cuffs and cut off a bunch of the center back so I could put in a zipper instead of using buttons. I threw in some pleats on the front bodice a la the Anna bodice. Her skirt is two widths of fabric all gathered up.
I used bias tape to face the neckline of Guinevere’s dress. Both dresses have very simple turned under/machine stitched hems on the skirts and sleeves.
You’d think that as much fabric as I started with, I would have tried harder to match the stripes, but apparently that didn’t happen; nothing seems to match. It’s a pretty busy print, so I’m not sure that a lack of stripe-matching would be the first thing anyone would see.
I wanted to find somewhere with stairs in front of a door like Roisin has for many of her pictures, but then got too tired to go anywhere and had to use my own front door. One step does not stairs make, so we made up for it in sassy attitude.
Stash-busting stats: 22/50 projects. 45 1/2 yards.
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