My Sunny Bunny

I am noticing a "pattern". This is now Heather's favorite outfit, a sundress in orange, yellow and a groovy flower power motif. She still likes her sequined paisley-butterfly (with a yellow background) jumper that I made just recently. I am hypothesizing that she likes bold colors and floral designs like her mommy!


Some fun scenic pics:




From my parent's side courtyard:


Simplicity 4252 dress pattern with contrasting fabrics:


Pattern Description
Girls' dresses, tops, shrugs, and skirts. Bodice for the tops, dress, and shrug sized for stretch knits only. Skirts in cotton and cotton blends.

Sizing
Girls' size 3-8. I sewed a size 5.

Likes/Dislikes
I like how easy the dress is to put together! The only thing I dislike is finishing the armhole edges. I had to do some fiddling (snipping a tiny piece of fabric, here and there-which I shouldn't have done) around to make the bodice's top contrasting piece align nicely with the rest of the bodice to fold under nicely before stitching. Next time, I will use bias tape.

Bodice for Top and Dress
The directions for the top of the dress asked to refer to the those for the top alone. I used a safety pin to the turn the shoulder strap. I stitched the top edge of right side of a rectangular piece contrasting fabric placed to the top edge of wrong side (inside)the torso piece with the edges of the shoulder straps sandwiched in between. Then I flipped over the rectangular piece so that the floral side is on the front, and voila the shoulder straps came up! Then I folded the bottom edge of the contrasting piece about 3/8" and topstitched the top it to the rest of the bodice. I made an elastic casing (for 1/4" wide elastic) on the top edge of the back bodice piece. I sewed the top-gathered skirt below the bodice and voila, an instant dress! The bodice appears to be slightly low waisted.

Modifications
Instead of using cotton knit for the bodice, I used woven cotton fabric cut on the bias, still giving more than enough stretch and clearance to slip the dress on (maybe because my dd is a thin 4 y.o and often childrens' sizes appear larger than RTW). The bodice came from what was left from a previous project The woven cotton floral fabric came from le Wal Marche.

Conclusion
This is really an easy dress to make. I cut the pieces and sewed the entire dress in one afternoon!

My dd has been wearing this so much in the past several days, that it needs to be laundered. This is so easy to put on and remove that she is requesting me to make more sundresses like this one!

I recommend this pattern for anyone who has or knows of a little girl who loves no-frills dresses! Just changes in fabric changes the overall look of this dress! The shrugs, tops and skirts are also worth a try!