Stella dress

In my mission to use up my scraps I’ve been plotting quite a few makes for my neice. Tiny people clothes are ideal for using scraps! Here’s a dress I made her out of a lovely daisy double gauze…

1. The fabric

A while ago I said I was going to make a Ceilo top for my mum, and I did. She sent me her measurements, and chose the fabric she wanted, I made the top and it fit – a delightful success. She chose this light blue double gauze with little daisies embroidered on it for the top, and it was from Guthrie & Ghani. I really liked it so I also bought some for myself in navy. After making the top I had some small scraps left over. It was such lovely fabric I wanted to use every last piece, so I decided to make my neice a dress. I didn’t have quite enough, so I used some of my navy daisy fabric as well.

2. The pattern

For this dress I used the Stella pattern from Ikatee. I have made the blouse version before, but this time I wanted to make my neice a long sleeved dress that would keep her warm in the winter. So I did the dress version of the pattern but instead of keeping the skirt straight instead I added an extra gathered layer to give it more volume. I ended up making the size 4, but I used French seams which is a bit tight for the 1/4″ seam allowance on the pattern, so I am sure I exceeded that which would make it a bit smaller (she’s a small 4yr old).

3. The challenges

I confess that I haven’t made this dress very well. The daisies were quite bulky and wherever they hit a seam, it was really hard to keep it straight. I also gave up keeping them pattern matched and/or symmetric – the scraps didn’t allow for it. So it’s definitely a scrappy dress in more ways than one! I hope that the French seams aren’t too bulky and it’s comfortable for her to wear, I tried ironing them flat but I wasn’t very successful.

I decided to use a popper/snap fastening for the back instead of a button so that she can easily put it on/off, and I think it works but I also put a button on top for decoration and it’s ended up unusually thick – I’m still not sure whether I should remove it and replace with something thinner.

4. The final result

I think this is turned out okay, as long as you don’t look at it too closely…! As always, I’m not sure it’ll fit or be comfy but I really hope it is and that she likes it! That’ll be the most important result.