Here is the flower girl dress I made for my daughter. I don't have any pictures of the sewing progress because I usually didn't get started working on it until late at night.
It looked like a simple enough pattern (McCalls 5570), after all, little girl dresses are pretty simple, a plain bodice with a gathered skirt, right. I was somewhat oblivious to all the layers that are required to go under a dress like this to make it puffy specially because the length was all the way to the floor. The puckered up effect also made it hard to determine the right length as the pattern had no finished length measurements for the dress.
My daughter turns 4 next month, but patterns in my experience always run big so I started off making the 3 year old bodice size. It was too big. I had to unpick it all and make the 2 year old size. I also ended up cutting the skirt for the 2 year old size as it look gigantic. This size turned out exactly right even though my daughter is not small.
I was a bit intimidated by the dress when I got into the skirt part of it, but as I went along it really wasn't too hard. I was very happy with the result. I had to borrow a gathering foot and my sisters old Bernina to gather up the netting that goes inside the dress as I could not imagine trying to sew on the edge and pull on the strings on 12 very long lengths of sewn together pieces of netting. I did skip one of the three layers of regular lining because I thought the taffeta I used was fairly thick. This dress takes a surprisingly large amount of fabric. The cost came in probably just under $50.00. Which is more than I had planned to spend on a home sewn dress but I guess fairly reasonable compared to the $120 dresses at the bridal store.
And next -the wedding cake.
It looked like a simple enough pattern (McCalls 5570), after all, little girl dresses are pretty simple, a plain bodice with a gathered skirt, right. I was somewhat oblivious to all the layers that are required to go under a dress like this to make it puffy specially because the length was all the way to the floor. The puckered up effect also made it hard to determine the right length as the pattern had no finished length measurements for the dress.My daughter turns 4 next month, but patterns in my experience always run big so I started off making the 3 year old bodice size. It was too big. I had to unpick it all and make the 2 year old size. I also ended up cutting the skirt for the 2 year old size as it look gigantic. This size turned out exactly right even though my daughter is not small.
I was a bit intimidated by the dress when I got into the skirt part of it, but as I went along it really wasn't too hard. I was very happy with the result. I had to borrow a gathering foot and my sisters old Bernina to gather up the netting that goes inside the dress as I could not imagine trying to sew on the edge and pull on the strings on 12 very long lengths of sewn together pieces of netting. I did skip one of the three layers of regular lining because I thought the taffeta I used was fairly thick. This dress takes a surprisingly large amount of fabric. The cost came in probably just under $50.00. Which is more than I had planned to spend on a home sewn dress but I guess fairly reasonable compared to the $120 dresses at the bridal store.
And next -the wedding cake.
very pretty! that is a gorgeous red. the cake looks lovely in the next post too.
ReplyDeleteThis is beautiful! You did an awesome job...my dress-sewing needs improvement!
ReplyDeleteWaOw!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteMy daughter would be really jealous;)))
This is gorgeous! I'm about to make this dress for a wedding as well and was so glad to find your post about the pattern sizing.
ReplyDeleteYour dress is gorgeous! And your daughter looks beautiful. Could you describe how you made the poufs on the skirt? My granddaughter wants this dress for a flower girl dress and the pattern is out of print. Any information you could give me would be appreciated.
ReplyDeleterritarose - It's been a while since this dress but from what I remember -- there's two layers (not even counting the netting that poufs up the whole skirt). The outside fabric on the skirt is bigger and longer. The inside lining is the normal length of the skirt section. It is marked with dots that coorelate with dots on the outer skirt. You match them up, and tack them by hand sewing the two layers together starting with the top row and moving down. Now if you were to try to do this without a pattern, I would imagine it would require somemath skills. The concept is pretty basic but I would have had a hard time doing it without the pattern and markings. Good luck!
ReplyDelete