Simplicity 2459 - Dress and Bodysuit - Part 1

The Dress

I bought this pattern about two years ago when my daughter was still a baby.  Unfortunately, by the time I got around to sewing it she was too big.

Thankfully, my sister now has a gorgeous baby girl so the pattern won't go to waste. Hooray!

Isn't that frilly dress sweet?

As always, I went to sewing.patternreview.com before starting the project to see what the other reviewers thought.  One lady said that it was very heavy due to the large amount of eyelet lace so I decided to go off piste and use something a bit lighter - some white georgette combined with blue gingham. 

As the name suggests, the pattern really is simple and the instructions are easy to understand. We start off with the straps (chopsticks really come in handy for pushing out the corners!)

 

The only thing I don't really like about Simplicity patterns is they don't include many finishing touches.  I topstitched both the straps and bodice 'cos that's how I roll.

Here is the bodice back with the straps attached.

Next comes the most labour-intensive bit - the ruffles.  For the gingham ruffles, I used my new toy; a narrow hemmer foot.

 It took a little while and quite a few scraps to figure out how to use it but once I did, wow!  No ironing necessary.  This is my new favourite presser foot.

There is one thing I hate almost as much as ironing - gathering.  I decided to be sneaky and use the differential feed on my overlocker to do the gathers.  So far, so good.

 Next, the georgette ruffles.
 First, a lovely rolled hem on the bottom edge of each ruffle.

 Then some gathering on the top edges.

I used my overlocker to save time on making the ruffles but the gingham ruffles ended up too loose and the georgette ruffles were too tight.  I guess I need to work on tweaking the overlocker settings to get them just right.  With some persuasion (gently stretching the georgette and gathering the gingham again) everything worked out.

This is the skirt section with the ruffles attached.  The georgette ruffles were a bit shorter than expected.  I thought the hem and seam allowances would be enough to compensate for the length of the eyelet lace but I was wrong.  If I sewed this dress again, I would add around 2 cm to the bottom of the georgette ruffles to make everything match up.

Here is the skirt attached to the bodice.  The pattern calls for two buttons for the straps and two buttons on each side of the bodice.  Based on my experience as mother to extremely wiggly little girl, I decided to use snaps on the sides instead of buttons.  There is no way a baby is going to stay still while you try and do up six buttons!

Finally, add some bows on the front and we are done!

From the front:

And the back:

Next up: The Bodysuit