Sponge Plunge!

Just after her evening nap, Heather was asking for her "surprise." I told her to close her eyes and I placed her new dress in her hands. She could not resist another modeling opportunity!

Pattern Description Children's and Girls' Dresses: "Dress has raised waist, shoulder straps, casing and elastic upper back; dreses A, B have drawstring upper front; dresses A, D, E have lower tiers; dresses B and C have lower ruffle; dresses C, D, E have lapped upper front; dress C has trim along lower seam; dress D has rick-rack trim finish." I sewed View C.

I made the pants from Burda 9826. These pants have a cute bell flare to them. Since they run a but long, I cut an excess of 2" from the bottom hem.

Sizing

Girls' 3-4-5-6. I sewed Heather a size "4" instead of the usual "5", which was a bit larger for her in the upper body.

Fabric Used

Sponge bob themed cotton from my local Yardage Town.

Likes

*Easy to follow directions

*Easy to construct.

*Easy to adjust crossover style bodice. Since Heather is thin, I had to move the pieces pass the marked center.

* Cute style that can look casual or dressy depending on the fabric and trim.

Dislikes

* Directions on attaching the straps. I did a search on this pattern and noticed that Jessika also had the same issue with the straps.

Modifications

After sewing Heather's first version, I decided to change the way the straps are attached to the dress. I used a method that I recalled when I sewed her dresses from my very first pattern review, New Look 6613

However, the McCall instructions showed the bodice front and facing sewn entirely at the top portion, leaving the bottoms free to turn them inside out.
For this dress, I did not sew each pair of bodice front and facing pieces at the top part where the straps are to be attached. I did not like the idea of the straps' raw ends located below the front shoulder(from the inside of the dress), just stitched on leaving the raw edges unfinished. Instead, I left an opening for the top part of the strap to go through after inserting the strap from the lower edge of the bodice pieces, while the the right sides of the fabric are still together.

After adjusting the straps and cutting extra fabric protruding at the tops of the bodice sections, I sewed the rest of each pair of bodice pieces together. After turning the pieces inside out, voila! Each strap is attached to the top of the bodice, with no raw edges showing anywhere!
This method would overall affect the order of attaching the straps because attaching the straps to the back piece of the dress would come next (prior to creating the back casing and sewing the side seams. McCall's had the straps attached to the back piece before sewing them directly to top of the bodice, from the inside of the dress!

Conclusion

This dress is cute dress for any girl who wants something easy to put on and remove. I recommend for those girls at the stage where they love to play dress up! I wonder if children normally go through a stage where they want to wear so many things in one day. This is one of my daughter's favorite dresses because she could put this on, wear something else, and wear this again throughout the day!

This is definitely a cute dress I would recommend as a easy to make and a comfortable slip on dress to brighten any little girl's day!