Pattern in Progress...

In order to stay productive while I'm on the road, I try to do things that take lots of time, but that don't require scissors!! Alas, TSA isn't real keen on 8" dressmakers. So, my solution is to bring tracing paper, a small ruler, and a few basic patterns that I use to create new ones. Last week I decided to take the tea party dress and change things up.



So, here I am in Orlando, and am mulling over some changes I want to make this week to the pattern I created last week. I've been toying with the idea of crossover straps in the back of a sundress for awhile. I wanted something easy to wear and comfortable. To that end I decided to elasticize the back. I took the front of the tea party bodice, and made it all one piece and then added two straps that button in the back. The back is just a simple rectangle with some extra width to make it easy to pull on and off.



I'm thinking that I added too much "ease" in the back so I'll be making the back width about 2" smaller in this next incarnation. I'm also thinking that the dress is a little schizofrenic in that the front skirt doesn't have any extra fullness, but the back does. So back to the drawing board, except I can't decide whether I want to make a gathered front, or a flat back!! Decisions, decisions. My daughter may have the final say though because she was rather upset that her dress wasn't "twirly"! Ah, the whims of 4 year old girls...



You can see that the bodice has a small curve on the front. This is a perfect place to put a little piping (ah, you know I can't resist). In this case I chose a deep aqua whipstitch piping, and in the next phase I'm going to put this all the way around the back too. I also might add a little bit of rickrack to the bottom of the skirt where it meets the band...or maybe some ribbon...you can never have too many details. Well, you can, but you know what I mean.





In this last picture you can see what I mean by schizo. I love the overall shape of this dress, but I think it needs to either be gathered all the way around, or flat all the way around. Now that I think about it, I'm going to do both. I think that with the heavier home dec fabric that I used here from Anna Maria Horner's drawing room collection, it should probably be flat all the way around. When I make a gathered style, I'll use a lighter weight cotton so that the fullness isn't as heavy.



Either way, I'll be making this a little shorter. I have a tendency to err on the side of longer length because they grow so fast! But sometimes I think it's easier for girls to wear dresses if they don't get in the way of playtime. Because really that's what it's all about anyway...