Baby Dress And A Final Flip

If you've been reading along you know that the last two little girl dresses I made were flips of the Heidi and Finn Colorblock Dress Pattern, for Flip this Pattern at Frances Suzanne. Well, I have one final flip of this pattern, made for my littlest daughter.

  I made this last week during Kid's Clothes Week, and it is a much simpler flip than my first two. I completely ignored the outer pattern pieces, and only used the lining pieces. I removed the seam allowance from the back lining and cut it on the fold, once again without the built in cap sleeves. I added slightly gathered sleeves banded with ribbing, and bound the neckline with ribbing as well.

  At least, that's what I did originally. I've never worked with rib knit before, and it stretched out a lot more than I expected and left the neckline ripply and awful. I blamed it at first on my coverstitch machine, but when I re-did the neckline with my sewing machine and a twin needle, it rippled the same way. Finally I just did a regular neckband instead of a bound neckline. I cut off some of the original neckline so I would have room for the band.

  The binding on the sleeves also stretched out, and since Beckers is wearing 12 months in height, but is still smaller around the chest, the whole dress was too big. I fixed that by just taking both sides in, sleeves included, by about 1" each.

  I also made bloomers out of some coordinating knit. That pattern also needs some adjusting, but at least they aren't too small! =D

  The legs on these are drawn in with elastic thread... I knew they wouldn't pull in enough, so I stretched the thread when I wound it onto the bobbin, and they are just about right.

  I used my coverstitch machine for all of the main seams in these... it does great, but it seems like the presser foot pressure is stuck on the same setting, which is too much pressure and stretches knit out.

  It isn't noticeable after steaming the knit back into shape but I'm still going to send it back and see if I can get it repaired, as I think it will be a lot more versatile with that pressure setting working.

   The best part of this outfit is how comfortable it is for my (not so) little baby, who is not feeling well this week. =(

  The dotted knit is this one, which I expected to be a lighter and less red a color than it is, but which feels amazing... really soft and stretchy. And the floral knit is this one. It's a bit more drapey than I'd imagined but otherwise is what I expected. You'll see more of the dotted knit sometime this week.

  Thanks for stopping by!