My daughter chose the fabrics for this dress - and another I haven't made yet - from my ample stash. And judging by her choices (yellow dots with yellow lining, and blue linen with a cerise lining for the as-yet-unmade dress) all the cute, girlish fabrics she didn't pick may be nearing their use by dates.
This dress is fully lined - fancy for a doll - and the bubble skirt is a real bubble skirt, with the outer much wider than the inner skirt:
It closes with velcro in the back.
The velcro I bought seemed too wide, so I sewed it at half width, with
stitches going along the velcro edge aligned with the fabric edge, and
also along the half way width of the velcro. After stitching I cut the
excess velcro width away, leaving some nice narrow velcro for the next dress.
Which is all well and good, EXCEPT that the pattern is for an 18" doll. I'd estimated Lily to be about 18" tall when I bought the pattern, but she's an inch shorter and a lot skinnier than the average 18"-er. It's a bit embarrassing to admit this, but I ended up taking Lily's measurements so I could grade the pattern down! Wouldn't want to make baggy doll's clothes, would we! Talk about crazy...
The pattern adjustments went well except that I'd forgotten to measure the height at which Lily's neck turned into cloth - obviously not a regular adjustment for humans but one that a doll like this will always need :). And hence the white band you can see at the top of the dress, which perhaps you generously assumed was a high-necked singlet?
Don't worry, normal programming is scheduled to resume shortly.
Back soon with grown up sewing!
- Gabrielle xx
