Katy's Summer Dress

I recently blogged about a dress I sewed for Katy.  The dress featured in that blog was actually the second dress I made for Katy.  The first dress was much more complicated.

Katy has this lovely white dress that looks so pretty on her.  I love the simple design of the dress and after studying it for a while, I decided to try and make one like it.  Yes, my first attempt at making a dress for Katy also involved making my own pattern.

After lots of measuring, calculating, and drawing, and then remeasuring, recalculating, and redrawing, I finally started cutting my fabric.  I failed to take many pictures of the assembly process, but here a few I have:

Bodice and skirt ready to go together.

After gathering and attaching the skirt.

Finally found a use for this adorable arrow trim I've had forever.

The dress required lots of fittings (with a super squirmy toddler) followed by lots of alterations (enter the dreaded seam ripper) because as it turns out, I needed to do a little more remeasuring recalculating, and redrawing before cutting my fabric.  But, it all turned out well in the end.

Of course she needed a matching bow!

Not pictured is the coordinating diaper cover I made using a tutorial from Made Everyday.

My only real complaint about the final product is the bodice.  I used a very light interfacing on the bodice because my fabric was a bit lighter than the fabric in the dress I was copying and because I read a blog about mistakes that will make your clothes look homemade.  In hindsight, I think the interfacing was unnecessary and actually makes the bodice a little too stiff.  If that's my biggest complaint about my first dress, however, I don't think I'll beat myself up too much.