New Look 6884 and New Look 6638 - Easter Dresses

I guess I'm calling these Easter dresses, but my girls actually wore these last week and I initially intended them to just be spring dresses.  But, whatever....having a new Easter dress is nice, so we'll go with that for today.

My daughters are five and two and they were both so thrilled about having matching dresses.  I was a little surprised, actually.  I bought this fabric at Fabricland during their closing sale when they were considering a meter to be about as long as a full arm span.  I think I asked for three meters and came home with at least five.  So, there was plenty to make a dress for each girl and I have lots of this leftover.  (Please, no one suggest that I make something matching for me.  I heard that no less than five times at church.  It's just not going to happen).

The girls look very cute together, but I had a hard time getting a good picture of them together.  We headed outside this morning, but didn't find a good spot for a picture.

Too dark.  Let's try the deck in back.

Um, nope.  Too sunny.  Let's try the other side.

Rats.  Too many shadows.

By this time they were tired of my picture taking efforts, so I quit.

I used New Look 6884 for my older daughter's dress.  Based on her measurements, I cut size 4 and added 1.25" in length to the bodice and 1.5" in length to the skirt.  The only other change I made to the pattern was to straighten out the seams of the skirt so that the border print would be straight at the bottom.  The only design change was to add piping around the collar.  The print is rather busy and I thought that would add a little definition between the collar and bodice.

The sleeve band is cut from the solid pink part of the border print.

I picked up the buttons during Fabricland's closing sale, too, but not on the same trip as when I got the fabric.  (hmmm...maybe I'm going to find myself with lots of time on my hands now that I can't be making all these trips to Fabricland....)  They're a pretty good match in color, but maybe not in style.

My younger daughter's dress was made to match my older daughter's.  I started with New Look 6638, size 2.  This is a pattern for pajamas that I have used before.  It was in my stash and it had the collar, button front, and puffed sleeves similar to the first dress.  That was a good start.  From there, I:

• altered the sleeve to have a band at the bottom rather than an elastic casing.
• added a seam allowance and button overlap to the skirt front.
• drafted a front and back facing (the pattern used bias tape on the neck).
• replaced the gathers in the skirt with pleats.

It felt like it took a long time to make those changes and I wondered why I was really bothering - a similar dress in the exact same fabric probably would have been good enough.  But, in the end I'm glad I did make the changes.

So, success on two counts - both girls like their dresses and they really like matching.  Or would that be three counts?

Yesterday I finished the quilt I've been working on.  I'll tell you about it as soon as I take some pictures.