Dress upgrade.... or is that upsize...

I've made this pattern (Butterick B4701) up 3 times now, once sized down to fit a 2-year-old flowergirl and twice for Princess S in a size 4. She's fast outgrown them but apparently the Princess loves her dresses so much that she won't let them go, so I thought I'd make her an 'upgrade' of sorts. She's just turned 4 and is about average size for her age, so the Butterick pattern must really cater to smaller-sized kids! Based on that I decided to just make the dress up in the largest size for the pattern I had, which was a 6.

I found a really pretty pink and white stripe cotton to make it up in. Unfortunately it has turned up looking a little red in the photos, so you'll just have to take my word for it.


This was my first effort working with stripes and I had decided at the start that I would try my best to match up any stripe joins in the fabric, so I was very conscious of cutting the fabric using the print as a guide as opposed to the fabric grain.


Now I know a 4-year-old isn't going to notice details like stripe matching, and if I didn't point it out, no-one else would either, but I'm sure everyone has a bit of anal-retentiveness in them. I just happen to have a larger dose of it :)

Woohoo! All lined up!
I have to admit I was really pleased with the result. Matching up the stripes around the zip was a bit of an effort, but as I tend to find zips annoying to sew in general, it was nothing new to do it a few times over.

My hand-stitching skills are also improving - you can hardly see the thread where I've sewn the lining to the dress *yay*


I guess it's true what they say about practice making perfect :)