So it’s been a while since I began this run of posts but I’m finally getting around to posting my daughter’s dress and it’s progress.
The fist part and sometimes the hardest part (for me) is picking out material. In this particular case I was looking for an underdress piece that was roughly 34 inches by 44 inches unwashed.
The pink in the picture to the left is going to be the Eura dress and the blue will become the apron dress to top it. The roll of trim there on top of the material will go on the Eura dress at the wrists and maybe the neck. I’m not sure yet.
I measured my daughter and come up with the following measurements:
Chest to ankle: 24 in.
Neck to wrist: 14 in.
Fist:6.5 in.
Shoulder to Chest: 9.5 in.
Torso: 22 in.
Using the same pattern as I did for my own I came up with the following measurements (using a 1/2 seam allowance, and fudging a little for fit):
Dress pattern/guide
A: 26 in (Chest to floor)
B: 15 in. (Neck to wrist)
C: 10.5 in. (Shoulder)
D: 10.5 in. (1/2 Chest & over shoulder)
In this particular case I don’t mind if the “V” neck is a little deep or the dress is a little long. My daughter grows like a weed and the deep “v” can have a panel put in until she grows into it. The same with the overall length. I can easily put in a few tucks and let them out as she grows to get extra life out of this particular dress.
Now I don’t know about the rest of you but I “cheat” when it comes to dress assembly. I use a machine. If I were to hand hem or finish any of my pieces I would never get them done. To that end, this is how I assemble these dresses.
Assembly
- Hem the widest part of the sleeve. (I usually fold it twice to encase the raw edge)
- Hem the wrist portion
- Attach the sleeve to the torso portion (overlap the widest hemmed edge by 1/4 to 1/2 in in front and back)
- Next add the gores. I tend to add them from the wrist to hem since I know I don’t want to add too much to the wrist and if the skirt is a little slimmer it’s not the end of the world.
- Hem the sucker.
Layout of the dress (sleeve portion to the left, torso to the right)
With all this in mind I went to layout the dress on actual fabric. Now, apparently I wasn’t paying too much attention when I picked out my piece, because the overall length stretches selvage to selvage. Granted, I wasn’t too picky about getting the exact length on the torso piece and will have to test it on my daughter. I’m assuming that there will be at least one 1/2 inch tuck which will actually take up one inch of fabric.
For now I’ll stop here as the next bit will have more pictures and such. I hope this has been useful and stay tuned for part 4!