RED LINEN DRESS FOR MY TODDLER

I’ve expressed my love for linen before.  I’m not sure what I like the best – the fact that it is natural fibers against the skin, washes well, is socially acceptable to wear when it’s wrinkled?  All of these are big thumbs up in my book especially when I am sewing for my kids.  So when fabric-store.com contacted me to try out some of their linen fabric I thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to sew up a dress that I’ve been envisioning for my daughter.

The inspiration for this dress comes from this adorable dress.  I love the simple lines and bright fabric.  It feels modern while still being very kid appropriate.  And as you know my daughter will only wear dresses right now so this was an easy choice.

The fabric is fabric-store.com’s light weight IL020 Tomato Puree.  It’s a really pretty primary red with maybe a hint of blue undertone.  I don’t see the color still in stock, but they have some really beautiful colors and a few prints.  I’ve got my eye on this, this and this.  My daughter decided last week that red is her new favorite color because it looks like pink.  I know, that doesn’t make sense to me either, but I will take it.  Red it is.  I really like the feel of this fabric.  It breaths well and washed beautifully.  When it first arrived it felt starched so I was a little worried, but after one wash it was soft and fluid.  As expected it’s a smidge see through so I lined the main part of the dress with some brown cotton lawn from my stash.

For the base of the dress I used burda 6/2010 #147.  This served as the bodice shape and then I extended it into an A line dress that hit a bit above the knee.  Instead of buttons I left a 6 inch opening in the back with a small loop and button at the very top.  I thought that it fit the style of this dress a bit more than a row of buttons.

The ruffle is about 7 inches long in the front and about 9 in the back so that it cascades a bit.  I think that it ended up much prettier in the back actually because that is where most of the extra fabric falls too.  If I were to make it again I would draft the ruffle differently so that there would be more volume to the ruffle in the front.  Oh well.  Live and learn.

 * The fabric for this project was provided to me for free from fabric-store.com.  But, as always, the opinions in this post are mine alone.