More little dresses for little ladies

After a stint of grown-up clothing, it’s back to the littl’uns. This time, almost entirely unplanned, but much as I’m unable to resist a cornmeal lime cookie at Flour Bakery, so too am I rendered incapable in the face of Gather Here’s beautiful fabrics. I went in for a bit of navy blue jersey to put together with some Liberty printed jersey I bought a while ago, and I left with a Figgy’s design for baby dresses with very cute curved seams with pockets in them, and trendy pleated shoulders, and co-ordinated Japanese printed linen. And who could resist the trendiest 4 year old in all the land?

Yet again I made the error of trying to sew really quickly, as I only bought all these elements about 5 days before I was due to fly out to Seattle to see the kiddiewinks. But the good news is when you’re making something that’s less than 2 feet tall, it goes pretty quickly!

Here are the final garments:

Here are some of the details. The shoulders are overlapping flaps, and you can see that the sleeves has a pleated effect at the top – because the linen I used was fairly stiff it really sticks up when worn (which I love, though is maybe a *touch* edgy for a 3 year old).

Here’s the curved torso seam, with a pocket!

And here’s the invisible zipper up the back, and you can also see the neck facing inside (if I’d had more time, I would have made a lining, but this dress probably needs a little vest (undershirt) under it anyway).

And on our model! Zoe decided to put hers on immediately (over all her clothes), mostly due to her insatiable appetite for photo-taking (which I indulge her in, martyr that I am). She’s jamming her hands in the pockets here so it’s distorted the dress a bit, but you can see the idea.