Last week, I wrote a post about learning to sew a dress for Ruby. After the sewing workshop, I felt so inspired that making clothing was actually achievable that I set about making a second dress, less than a week after finishing the first. I loved the style of the tunic dress I shared last week, but I wanted to make something that would be a little quicker to finish. (I mentioned in this post that I hate leaving things unfinished, but have such a great tendency to do so, that having small projects that are quick to complete is a great help in finishing what I have started.)
I scoured Pinterest and found this lovely looking
cross over pinafore dress. I loved that it involved so few steps - cutting six pieces of fabric and sewing four seams - so I decided to give it a go. It felt slightly risky, as the pattern size was for 6-12 months, and my daughter is 16 months, but the blog post assured me that it should still fit - it would just be more of a top than a dress.
If anything, I would say that the pattern is a little too big, even for a top for my 16 month old (and she is not small).
I am pleased to say that this dress really was as simple as I had anticipated. I think it only took me 90 minutes to complete. Ruby had decided to skip her afternoon nap when I had intended on sewing, but I decided to go ahead and sew anyway to help me stay sane, and thankfully she was quite happy to play independently. Except for the times when I sat at the sewing machine and she wanted to keep me company.
The pattern suggests using buttons to fasten the straps, but I decided to simplify things even further, and just use poppers, which were much quicker to attach. I am planning on making at least one more of these tops, and I thing I will reduce the width of the shoulder straps, and also the width of the body. I'll add a little more length so it can be worn as a dress in Summer without being so short that it reveals Ruby's nappy. All in all, I loved sewing this, and the fact that it was so quick to make, made it feel like an even bigger win.
Fabric Notes:
I bought the fabrics for both dresses from a local shop called
Fabrics Plus. They also have an online shop, but I find it's much harder to view the fabrics as effectively online as it is in store. I couldn't find a link to he fabrics I used, but I'm sure they're somewhere on the website.
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