birthday dress

I have been in a rut when it comes to sewing lately. I have a lot of fabric that my grandma sent home with me last summer when we visited, but I've been having a hard time getting started on anything. I have grand plans for what I want the clothes to look like when I sew them, but I'm scared to death that when I'm done they won't look as good as I imagined, which would be pretty depressing after spending all that time sewing. My other problem is that I bought some patterns a long time ago, and now the measurements are too small for the skirts I wanted to make for myself. Finally it occurred to me that I should just do some of the things I wanted to make for Heidi, because pretty much everything looks cute on her. So Heidi got a sweet new jumper.

Sorry the pictures don't have a glamorous background, but she was holding still, so I took the opportunity.

The pattern I used was Butterick B4718. It is a great pattern. There were a couple of parts of the instructions that weren't clear, but I was able to figure them out. I put a lot of effort into making this a good quality garment, and the work paid off. Often when I just follow a tutorial online I end up with something that looks pretty good, but I still feel dissatisfied because I know about the hidden flaws. I don't feel that way about this dress. I did all the extra steps that aren't necessary but make the garment look more polished, like the understitching, and it made a difference. I was so proud of myself for figuring out how to sew the zipper in. I remember having to have a lot of help from my grandma sewing zippers in when I was in 4-H, so I was nervous, but in the end the zipper looked really nice. Rather than cutting on the size lines, I folded the pattern at the size I was using so that I can unfold it and use it again for more dresses as Heidi gets older.

I did make one alteration. The skirt wasn't lined in the pattern, but I wanted it to be lined so that I won't necessarily have to worry about a slip, so I added a lining. After I had sewed in the zipper, I sewed the skirt lining in at the seam where the skirt and bodice were stitched together, stopping about an inch away from the zipper on both sides. Then I hand-stitched the skirt lining to the zipper on the inside. An added bonus that I hadn't thought about is that Heidi won't have the itchy end of the zipper poking her.

The one thing I'm a little sad about is that the bodice is a little bit too wide. I'm not surprised because Heidi's measurements were about an inch smaller than the smallest pattern size, so I expected it to be a little big. I might add a couple of little pleats in the front to make it fit better, but I do think it looks fine as it is.

This is the first time I've made anything with a purchased pattern since high school. Most of my sewing projects have been based on tutorials I find online because they're free (whereas patterns can be expensive), but I think I'm going to use patterns more often. As I was making this dress, I found that it was much more enjoyable to make it because everything fit together so well.

Want to know the total cost? The fabric was free, the zipper was $1.19 after my 40% off coupon, and the pattern was $1 (watch for pattern sales!). I don't remember what I paid for the thread, but it's probably negligible. So the total cost for me was about $2.20.