Floral Babycord dresses for Freya and my niece.

My niece is 6 months older than Freya. I made two identical dresses in the same size, Freya will have a bit more growing room in hers!

The pattern is Ottobre 1/2005 designs 18 (dress) and 19 (underskirt)

The fabric for the dress was from ebay - seller id 'laluthan'.

It is a lovely soft babycord - when it arrived it had more drape than I was expecting, so it became this dress instead of the one I had planned! The batiste and spanish cotton edging lace was also from ebay - seller id 'rettacarol'. I was a bit short of the batiste in the end though - should've ordered more!

The dress went together easily, apart from the usual invisible zip niggles! I really must remember not to sew when I'm too tired. Or should that be, do not snip the ends off the zip when you are not awake enough to realise you shouldn't be doing that (!)

To get the scallops even, instead of adding a seam allowance and cutting them out along with the pattern, I traced the pattern as-is (ottobre patterns do not include a seam allowance). I then pinned the pattern piece to the wrong side of the fabric and marked the scallop placement with water soluble marker pen. When it came time to sew them, I stitched along my marked line, then did a small zigzag all around the outside before trimming very close to the seam, turning, pressing and topstitching. They turned out *mostly* even, LOL!

I need to stitch the bows so they are babyproof!!

Instead of doing the zipper on the underskirt, I added a placket (there is a very good explanation of this method in the Singer Sewing for Children book). I used snaps to fasten it (I need to get my money's worth out of my snap press!)

Finally, some modelled pics - I think she looks very cute :)

Here she is at Emma's 5th Birthday party (September 2005) - still plenty of growing room in the dress!