Fairytale forest dress

Autumn has come here in Finland. I made a playdress for S using a “Riine” dress pattern from the book Mekkotehdas by Etula and Valkeapää-Ikola. The dress has a nice square neckline. I completely forgot to make a slit to the back but luckily enough the neckline is big enough to fit over S’s head even without.

The fabric is gorgeous quilting weight Michael Miller cotton called “Fantasy forest”. I also added some piping to the dress over the gathered skirt. I am quite proud of the piping because this was the first time I used it. I also had to make my own piping to get the right color. I used thick Drops Paris cotton yarn and ready mustard yellow bias binding. I had to try a few times to get the seam line right next to the piping and I think there might be some trick to it that I did not know. Perhaps, if I hadn’t had the gathered fabric there, I could have sewn along the seam with which I fastened the piping to the top of the dress. However, I ended up sewing the piping blindly with the gathered fabric on top, since I felt the need to watch my gathers. I’ll be wiser next time.

I used the size 110-116 cm which was quite big for S. I chopped two inches of the sleeves and the hem and there is still room for growth. I spent some time considering whether to put in some patch pockets, but was finally too lazy and discarded the idea.

“Yikes! Mum, I saw a giant ant!”