Grace's First Easter Dress

Those Easter dresses were so much work that I am showing each one off in its own separate post and telling you all how I made them, hopefully getting some tutorials out on my original designs by the end of the week.  So, here we go- youngest to oldest...

For Grace, I made a simple sundress and a ruffle-butt diaper cover. 

I was crunched for time, so for the dress, I used a tutorial that I found over on Jess's blog, craftinessisnotoptional (so many great tutorials over there!!!)  You can see the tutorial HERE.  I did make a few changes, though.  I added an eyelet lace ruffle at the bottom and piping underneath the bodice.  It was my first time doing piping, so I knew it was a crazy idea for the day before Easter, but I LOVE the way it turned out.  It definitely makes the dress!

 

For the diaper cover I used THIS pattern, but I added ruffles, inspired by THIS tutorial.  I made some changes on the ruffles- the sides were hemmed in on a curve so that it doesn't look weird from the front, the bottom edges were hemmed instead if serged, and I had just enough lace leftover to make the top ruffle using that instead of the white fabric.

The white fabric for the lining and trims in all of the dresses came from a really nice white sheet I got at Target. 
OK... now for the proud-mama-show-off-pictures!!!



(Her finger is fine- she had a check-up that morning and needed a finger prick, but the nurse matched the gauze to her dress!)

little peek at the ruffles

back of the dress

Here is her basket!  I let her pick the colors by crawling to the reed she liked. =

 Pretty cute for her first Easter!!! =)

Strawberry Shortcake Dress

My 3yo is still on the Strawberry Shortcake kick! So for her birthday I made her a Strawberry Shortcake dress. I just blatantly copied Strawberry's dress by sewing a semi-circle skirt to the bottom of a white T-shirt. It turned out pretty good, but my brain does NOT function well lately, so I had a few snags. I accidentally made the skirt twice as big as I needed to (should have divided the waist by 4 instead of 2!) so I cut it in half and now I could make another one if I need to (and I might because this is a white shirt after all!) I originally wanted a full circle skirt, so it isn't as twirly as I wanted, but it is actually closer to the "real" one.

I appliqued the strawberry and diamonds on the shirt for the argylish pattern on the new Strawberry's dress. I did them by hand while at soccer practice so she wouldn't see it. (Everything else was done over a few naptimes).If I hadn't been doing this as a surprise I would have been able to catch that the T-shirt is a little long and it would be better if I had cut some of the bottom off before sewing the skirt on. But now it is big and if she doesn't destroy it she can grow into it and wear it longer.

Oh- and, completely unrelated to sewing, I kept things simple for her cake since I am on a major cake-flopping roll here. Just pink icing cupcakes with strawberry gummies on them slapped together at the last minute.

Happy Birthday!!!

In the Garden Twirly Easter Dress

My 7yo daughter was also very opinionated about her dress style. She wanted a "poofy" skirt and straps instead of sleeves (she said spaghetti straps and I said "NO"). So, I checked out my bookmarked list and found this tutorial. She totally approved! The straps are the minimum 1" wide allowed in the school dress code, so it should be OK to wear to school if she wants, and the skirt is two full widths of the fabric- so it is very "poofy."

I was really nervous to do the shirring because I had never tried it before and it is the very last step! I saw it done on Martha Stewart a few years ago and figured I could handle it. Luckily, it worked just fine.

Thanks for bearing with me as I showed off my girlies' Easter dresses the past few days! Happy Easter!!!

Puffy Sleeve, A-Line Easter Dress

My 5yo wanted "puffy sleeves" (I wasn't thrilled with that- I don't like sleeves!) and a "straight" skirt.

I traced one of her T-shirts to get the bodice pattern, but made the waist fairy high. Then I cut the skirt to be an A-line style.

The sleeves were a little trickier, but they turned out really, really well! I used the same technique as found here.

I prefer invisible zippers and I used a sash from the Easter dresses I made two years ago. Maybe later I will make another one, but for now this is good.

It is very simple, but it is what she asked for! For now there is a little room for her to grow (or the dress to shrink) so she should be able to wear it all summer long!

Ruffle Tank Easter Dress

For the Easter dresses this year, I wanted to:

1. use things I already had, if possible
2. skip the commercial pattern thing
3. let the girls have a say in what style they wanted

I had one yard pieces of cotton quilting fabric in pretty calicos that I made work for the younger girls, but I had to buy some for the oldest one. All these addicting blogs gave me the confidence to "wing it" with the patternless approach, too. But for my youngest, who is not yet 3, she would have asked for something ridiculous given the option.

So.. I patterned the style after her favorite shirt -the one that she INSISTS on wearing all the time (she says it is her beach shirt, even though she has never been to the beach.) I made it longer, of course.

I love the cute little flutter sleeves on this. When I sewed the top ruffle on, most of the front gathering came out, so I just let it go cause I was lazy.

I also got my gathering foot to work for my serger, and I was so excited that I made ruffles until I ran out of fabric. So there are 2 rows of ruffles on the bottom.

She loved the pockets on her Leah tunic so much that I put pockets on the dress, too. And I added ruffles at the top.

It was very easy to sew up, so I may make another one and post a tutorial and pattern for it, too!

Easter Sewing Part 3

For my youngest daughter, I wanted to make a dress instead. She is little, so I had enough material.

I tried to make a pillowcase dress from this tutorial, but it was too big and because the material is stiffer than regular cotton, when I tightened the ribbons to make it fit it was then too short.

I fixed the shortness by adding a ruffle on the bottom from the white cotton. I took a 6” strip, folded it in half and ironed, then gathered it and sewed it on the bottom.

I topstitched to make it look more finished and hold the ruffle down nicely.

The armholes called for single fold bias tape in the original directions- it was my first time using single fold bias tape and I hated it. Seriously.

To make the dress fit better I took the front half of the bias tape off and made it cut in a little more so that the front is narrower than the back before I sewed the bias tape back on. The fit was much nicer, but I still hate bias tape.
The ribbon ties still did not work because of the material/she never holds still so I scrapped it and added some nice, wide straps. It still needed a little something, so I made some tiny bows out of the green grosgrain ribbon and hand stitched them on at the end of each strap.

FINALLY the fit is perfect- although it is now nothing like a pillowcase dress at all! Unfortunately, it is REALLY tight going over her head, so I may have to make the straps thinner if she ever grows some hair and it gets too hard to put on.
Just my own skirt left for tomorrow!

Easter Sewing Part 2

For the next skirt in my Easter sewing series- I went totally without pattern! I decided I wanted to make this one a longer style with a wide white waistband along the top and a ribbon bow accent.

I made another rectangle measuring 18” by the fabric width- 60”and sewed it into a tube. Again, I overlocked the edges and hemmed the bottom.

Then I made a wide, white waistband by taking a 30” by 5” piece, sewing the short ends together, and pressing it folded in half with the seam to the inside. The measurement of this piece is wide enough to go over her hips. I sewed a casing for the elastic and put it in, although I could not find elastic as wide as I wanted to it still twists a bit when she wears it.

I gathered the skirt part with a wide basting stitch and attached it to the waistband. I topstitched it- not very close to the edge, but it looked better on the wide waistband.
To put the bow on, I used two small seams to attach the middle of the ribbon to the waistband off to one side. And... TA DA! The perfect length for a not-so-modest 6yo!

Tomorrow's dress was the hardest but by far the CUTEST!!! Stay tuned!