Adorable, but not for the green sewist...
This pattern is SO sweet. I am so pleased with the results.
I am an experienced hobby sewist, though majority of my practice is in knitwear, not wovens. Obviously the two styles are NOT the same, and so the approach/techniques are likewise, different.
I made two of these dresses. The first, I tried to follow the instructions as written. I say tried, because I found them confusing and unclear a few times. The photos helped a little, sometimes, but the lining fabric (in the tutorial project) being solid white made it confusing, since it was the same on the right and wrong sides. I also felt like the cutting instructions were somewhat difficult to decipher– just the way the pieces were named/labelled, and how many of each were needed. I took a guess and ended up being correct but it definitely could have been clearer (a detailed cut list for each skirt style in the tutorial pages would have helped a lot!).
I wasn't happy with the way the sleeve construction was done in the tutorial, I found it immensely challenging to achieve a good result following the steps given. As an experienced sewist I was able to ultimately tackle the sleeves in a completely different way, and I am THRILLED with the result and it was much more manageable, so I think there's room for improvement, but little things like that are how sewists personalize and optimize projects as they become more familiar with them. I think if I wasn't as experienced the sleeves would have been frustrating enough to quit the project, but I am SO glad I persevered and had some tricks up my own sleeve 😂.
Lastly, my girls won't like the gather seam at the shoulder and waist being exposed to the inside of the garment. I didn't do anything to correct that in the first dress I built, but in the second (with some rather complicated mental gymnastics) I managed to enclose the shoulder and waist gathers between the main and lining layers. It did add a little volume to the bodice that wasn't present in the first project, but I could have trimmed o(r serged!) the gather before sandwiching and I think it would have had a crisper finish, that would also enhance the comfort of the garment (especially for those sensory spicy kiddos!!).
Overall, the design is adorable and a good result is absolutely achievable if you have some garment construction experience and strong reading comprehension skills.
Thank you Violette Field!
