Abby Dress - Sew Sweet Patterns

My SIL must think I can work miracles! She wants me to make this dress for my 18month of niece for a wedding next month....a Lace Silk Cotton dress with pearl beaded neckline....hmmmm....

From here

Of course I couldn't deny my niece a beautiful dress so the hunt for a pattern, that looked kinda like this, that was within my limited sewing abilities, was on.
While not quite the same sophistication the Abby Dress from Sew Sweet Patterns seemed to fit the bill, and a quick PDF purchase pattern made it very easy for an instant start.

With some Etsy hunting, text messaging and FB web site linking, she picked a fabric she like, added some more lace and ditched the beads (might be over kill with the lace). They will all hopefully arrive from the US with enough time for me to make the dress.

I chose some Amy Butler 'Love' fabric from my stash to give the pattern and sizing a test run.

The dress came together quite smoothly. The pattern is quite easy to follow although the busy fabrics used in the photos make it difficult to see exactly where to sew. I made a few errors using the unpicker a few times but it is sitting quite flat and looks like it will hopefully be a good fit. Sewing in a size 12-18 months can be quite tricky on the small pieces!

Here are my adjustments for this pattern....

The size 12-18 months uses a lot less fabric than the pattern suggests

 Step 4 - It was too tricky to measure on such tiny pieces of fabric and on a curve (I did this for 1 facing and it looks no different to the others)  so I guessed the rest with no problems.

Step 16b - I forgot to trim the seam allowance here and it does look a little bulky in the yoke so don't forget to do this part.

Steps 17b, 18, 19, 20  - I did this a one lot of top stitching using the iron and pins to help tuck it all under

Step  21 - overlock edges of fabric before join the back pieces together - in fact this should be done straight after you cut them out

Step 23 - same above, need to be overlocked before joining together - also the seam where the yoke joins the main dress need to be sewn towards the yoke so that when you fold the yoke back down the sit flat.

Step 25 - Buttonhole - when you make a crossover buttonhole like in the pattern it bunches up the back of the dress and makes it overlap funny. So i decided to unpick a tiny (3 stitches) of the facing seam and add in a small loop of elastic to over over a shank button. It meant the stitching was a little messy there, so I'd add this step in at 16a where you join the two yokes to together. The finish on my back yoke pieces was a lot more angled than in the pattern photos but not sure why??

I do think that it is a pattern I would sew again....lucky cause that is what is going to happen in a few weeks....I'll let you know how I go!!

PS Aden wanted to hold the dress up just like Daddy.....and yes Daddy's face looked like that too!

SYST count is down another 3FQ's !!