NewLook 6200 - Sea green + pink horse dress

Sewing clothes for little girls is addicting. It's total instant gratification: 30 minutes of tracing + 30 minutes of cutting out on stable cotton fabric + a couple hours sitting at the sewing machine = a new dress with no fitting issues.

I used another cotton from Fabric.com, from the wildly popular Michael Miller "Wee Wander" series. I picked a simple dress pattern to not cut up the horses too much, and spent some time laying out my pieces carefully. The jumbo rick-rack and pink bow were purchased locally and matched as best as possible.

I cut a size 1/2 for the width and a size 4 for the length and left off the pocket. She's not typically a 4 in length but this dress was drafted somewhat short. It's pretty blousy through the torso which is fine for a little girl's dress.

I did make a number of changes to the pattern instructions. The front neck band was interfaced and the angle of the straps straightened before attachment. I used fabric bias strips to finish the armholes instead of the bias tape that was called for. The back strap attachment was changed to look neater and I put in an invisible hem instead of a topstitched one. If there's no other topstitching present in a garment, it looks odd to me to have it at the hemline.

The neckline of this dress was so fiddly to sew - tiny front band that the whole front of the dress gets gathered and stitched to, then attach the gathered front straps, then sew the inside band to it and mind the corners for a nice sharp finish. While I was in the middle of wrestling with it, I vowed that this was the last time I'd use this pattern. However, it turned out so adorable in the end that I'm sure I'll make it again.

I hand-stitched the bow from the backside so that it wouldn't come untied and fray-checked the ends. This is only the 2nd or 3rd time I've used rick-rack and I think it's so fun and girly. You can see the bias bands I used at the armholes in the next picture and the side french seams. Also you can just barely see that the tops of the straps are gathered too. I forgot to get a close-up of that on Rachel.

I really enjoy using NewLook and Simplicity's toddler patterns and have a number of them. I wish McCall's and Butterick had more contemporary designs and started their sizes at 1/2. Skinny girls need cute patterns too.