Smoldering Wick Designs: Little Striped Dress

A few months ago when I started shopping for fabric for all of our holiday gifts I found and fell in love with this lovely seersucker.

Only, it's hardly even noticeable as a seersucker - the stripes are so tiny that it simply feels like a textured baby stripe. The color was a pale purple with white stripes and I just had to have it for one of our nieces.

a closer look

I knew I wanted to make a poofy ruffly little dress for her. The pattern I used was the same one I developed for another niece's coat with a few alterations.

Pieces cut out

The skirt is just a simple dirndl-type skirt, in this case a large rectangle gathered at the waist. I needed to have a small opening at the top of the skirt in the back so I bound it with a small piece of self-bias.

After that I put together the bodice. The shoulder seams are flat-felled and the back closures have an extra-wide self-facing.

Apparently I didn't take any pictures while I was doing the sleeves. I gathered the sleeves and carefully topstitched white satin ribbon over the gathering. The sleeves were hemmed with white eyelet lace.

I also hemmed the skirt in the white eyelet lace. It is something I've had in my stash for many years as it is the leftover from a dress my mother made for me that I loved.

Attaching the eyelet

With the bodice together I gathered and marked the skirt and stitched it down to the bodice.

almost, but not quite finished

I finished the waist seams by machine stitching some white satin ribbon to the seam allowance just inside the seamline. Then I folded it over and hand stitched it to the other side of the seam allowance for a nice smooth finish.

On the outside I added two layers of ribbon: one wide, one thinner. The ribbon was left over from our wedding and matched the material perfectly.

And here you can see how the stitching for the ribbon looks on the inside.

For the neckline I carefully pulled the binding off of a strip of the eyelet and basted the eyelet down separately. Then I re-pinned the binding back over the eyelet and the neckline and topstitched them down together.

For the back closure I had these wonderful tiny baby buttons that I picked up on clearance several years ago. I've sooo been wanting to use them on something and this seemed the perfect time. But it can be a real frustration trying to button & unbutton a busy 2-year-old so I put the buttons on top for show but the closures are snaps.