I hadn’t planned on making this dress, but I suddenly remembered it was our neighbour Matilda’s fourth birthday today so I went over and took some measurements yesterday, and chose dress #6 from the Fall (Herfst) 2008 Knippie idee magazine:
Remember back at Christmas I made this as a top for my niece? You might also remember Matilda from the knit balaclavas I made her at Christmas…
This time I made the smallest in the size range, 98, after measuring Matilda (who’s turning 4), whereas I’d made the biggest size, 128, for my niece who was barely 6 then.
Here’s the dress, front and back, laid out flat:
But of course, as any parent of a four year old will tell you, that’s the most still that dress ever was! Matilda changed into it immediately after opening it up, and stayed in it for the entire party.
And fuelled by chocolate cake and juice, we got to see how the ruffles moved as she zipped around, twirled about, and jumped up and down (I even had some interest in sewing the grown up version!)
The dress itself was really easy to sew – it’s essentially a long teeshirt with semi-circular ruffles topstitched on to the bottom the whole way around. I just finished the ruffle edges with the overlocker for a RTW finish and used a bit of that pink and black flowered fabric as the neck band for contrast. I told her mum and dad that I’ve got the pattern now if she outgrows this one too soon! I’m just happy she really likes it, and felt comfortable enough to play in it and not worry about spilling or messing it up! Little kids can be really fickle so anything more than a “eww, clothes? Where’s the toys?!?” reaction makes me ecstatic!