Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Birthday Tea Dress


This is the dress I made for my daughter's 1st birthday.  I wanted something that would be a pretty little tea dress & found a pattern for a tunic top with a cute front pleat and went for it.  I added extra length to make it into a dress:


I love how the sleeves fold up to show the contrasting fabric and are accented with a little bow detail:


And the easy open back, which I made even easier by using snaps instead of buttons.  This made it simpler to take off after it got covered with birthday cake:


The pattern used was the Savanni Tunic of Ottobre Design's Summer 2010 issue.  The overall design of it is straightforward, but the directions seemed to over complicate things a lot.   Maybe it's because I'm a visual person, but my one big gripe about this (and most of the other Ottobre patterns really) is that they just cram all the instructions into a tiny paragraph with no illustrations.  And maybe one or two posed pics of the item, but never a total view, so you can't refer to that for help.  Not very user-friendly.  So if you're brand new to sewing....good luck.

I accidentally stitched the top & bottom layers together wrong the first time because I thought I was following the directions despite my crafter's sense telling me it wasn't right.  And this was after reading & re-reading it several times.  Ugh.  So ultimately I find myself just assembling it as it makes sense to me instead of using their steps.  Once I finished it I also felt like the front was too blah, so I added another button & bow.

Here's how it looked on (I didn't think to take a better picture!):


Perfect for the party & that's what counts!

Sharing this with my FAVE LINK PARTIES too so check them out HERE!


12 comments:

  1. Lovely dress. I hope her birthday was a wonderful one.

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  2. That dress is so cute.. perfect for her party theme. I love the little bows with pearl buttons!

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  3. How adorable! I especially love the sleeves!

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  4. I love the sleeves and the little pleats of the dress! The birthday hat really adds a cute touch. :)

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  5. That top is absolutly adorable!
    ~Kimberlee
    www.TheSpunkyDiva.blogspot.com

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  6. Such a sweet dress - good job! I am getting ready to redo my daughters room in a tea party theme. Love your ideas!

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  7. Your daughter is so stinkin' cute, I can't stand it. You did a great job on her dress. Thanks for linking.

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  8. This is adorable! I LOVE the fabric combination. Nice work!

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  9. Oh that's just darling, and it looked so itty bitty when I first pulled it up I thought that must be a top not a dress. It seems I'm already forgetting how tiny they once were. Thank you for joining us at A Crafty Soiree! I hope you'll come back next week and link up again!

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  10. Cute cute CUTE~! So fun! Thanks for linking up to Topsy Turvy Tuesday's!

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Getting your comments brightens my day. I'd love if you left one:)

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