New Grandma Wants to Sew!: This year's Christmas Dresses - Part 2

With 4 new Christmas dresses to make, I got started early. With no idea as to whether I'd even be able to see my grand-daughters for Christmas, I wanted to get them out early rather than treating them as an extra Christmas present. So the last one was delivered on December 4th. For that one, I used a new (to me) free pattern, so this post will also be a bit of a pattern review.

For two of these dresses, (those on the right below) I had used a commercial pattern I've used a number of times before, from Burda (9379). I also mostly used the bodice of this for the top left dress (modified). But I used Eli Monster's free Tropisch dress for the little one bottom right.

You can read about the two dresses made from the Simplicity pattern in this post, and the little red dress from the Tropisch pattern here. Now, I will talk about the asymmetric dress in the top row above.

Jane and Ada are more inclined to like party style dresses than their cousins. For Jane's, I thought I would try an assymetrically-skirted dress, with a tulle underskirt. I've seen a lot of dresses in this style on the internet. I thought it might be beyond me to make or hack my own pattern for this, so I purchased a pattern (yes that's right, I actually paid $10 for it). And that was the Elouise from Simple Life Patterns. It is for woven fabrics, although they do a very similar patterns for knits. It is clearly a very popular pattern, and looks very cute in the pictures. However, once I'd looked at it, it has a bare back with bows across. None of my grand-daughters (or their mothers) like bare-backed dresses, - and anyway, it was December! - so I needed to think again. I clearly wasn't going to use the back of the bodice. And if you don't use the back, you can't really use the front either. The bodice looked rather short-waisted anyway for our taste. So many little girls' patterns these days seem to be very high-waisted. It looked like I would only be using the skirt of the Elouise pattern.

The obvious choice for my bodice was the same Simplicity pattern 9379 as I'd used for the two right-hand dresses in the picture above. I've had this pattern a long time, used it over and over again, it's falling to bits really, but I've traced it in sizes I want to use, so it will probably still get some more use. The one thing I did like about the Elouise pattern apart from the assymmetric skirt, was the sweetheart neckline at the front, so I hacked the Simplicity bodice with this neckline. (As you can see, the main part of the bodice was fully lined.)

The next change I made to the Simplicity top was to the sleeves. The pattern offers plain short or long sleeves. I wanted something a bit more party-like. You could make fully circular cuffs, but I wanted something not quite so flared - about 1/2 a circle.

To achieve this, I cut the sleeves to three-quarter length, then measured the bottom. I cut a rectangle of paper about 4" (10cm) - the length I wanted the cuffs plus seam allowance - by the width of the sleeve pattern.

Then I marked lines from the bottom edge about 1" apart (2.5cm), stopping just short of the top edge. Using the 'Slash and Spread' method, I stuck my rectangle onto another piece of paper, spreading out the little sections I had cut about 1" apart, and sticking them down. This formed a semi-circle. As you can see, I hand-drew the semi-circular lines round the top and bottom edges of my new pattern.

I used the pattern to cut two cuffs out of the outer fabric and two out of the lining. (Do you like my pattern weight?)

I stitched each cuff right sides together with the lining on the longer curve.

It's worth pointing out here how I sewed the lining fabric. It was thin and extremely slippery, so I sewed it with a piece of tissue paper over the seam, which I tore off afterwards. This picture below shows the cuff with the yellow tissue paper removed from one side of the seam. I used tissue paper on most of the lining seams to stop it being wrinkled up by the sewing machine.

I clipped this curve that I'd sewn, and turned the cuff right side out to press it.

Next, I attached the top edge of the outer fabric of the cuff, right sides together, to the sleeve (as yet still not sewn up). When I came to sew up the seam of the sleeve, I continued down the seam of the outer part of the cuff, and down the lining. A slightly awkward seam, as it isn't straight, but it worked fine. The lining was turned back inside. Its top edge was folded and pressed down on the seam allowance, and I hand-sewed it to the sleeve. You may be able to make that out in the picture above.

"All" that remained now was to make the skirt. I had the Elouise pattern for this - but of course, I hadn't used the Elouise bodice, so I wasn't sure how I'd be able to make it fit my bodice. I didn't want to waste my material, so I actually made a trial run skirt with some other fabric first, using the Elouise pattern. I made it as a wearable toile, rather than waste that fabric too! You can find out about the assymetric skirt in this post.

Here's the dress with the asymmetric skirt attached.

Of course, it's not intended to be worn like that. I had made a separate underskirt of sequinned tulle with a lining of the same fabric as the dress lining. The underskirt lining is deliberately a bit longer to avoid the scratchiness of the tulle against her legs. I chose to make the underskirt separately (the Elouise pattern attaches it to the over skirt). This was because I had previous experience of the sequinned tulle - it doesn't wash well. This way, the dress could go in the laundry whenever, whereas the underskirt would just get an occasional hand-wash when it needed it.