2013 Christmas Dresses

This year's Christmas dresses for the girls were a smash hit.  

The girls each chose their own colors and gave me design ideas/drawings.  I then drafted patterns from scratch and made the dresses.  I am happy to report that my custom drafts worked well and the dresses are great!  They are a huge improvement over last year's dresses in both design and construction.  Last year's designs were about as plain as you could get and had more sewing errors than I care to admit.  This years are a little more fancy/complicated in design and I can assure you are far more properly and professionally sewn.  

The pattern drafting (on paper) went fairly smoothly.  After a first fitting (made in cotton) I was able to see where things were going awry or didn't fit quite right, change the pattern on paper, do a second fitting and fix the problems.  One of my goals for 2013 was to learn more about pattern drafting and I feel like I have accomplished a lot in that regard.  I still have much to learn, but I have come a long way in just a year. 

Here is Grace's gold dress: 

It is gold satin, with a gold-on-gold satiny fabric as the trim.  

I trimmed/faced the neckline and cuffs with about a 2'' band and the waistline and hem with a wider 3-4'' band.

These photos unfortunately don't do the gold color justice.  The fabric and trim coordinate perfectly and are really gorgeous.  For better or for worse, Grace instantly looks older when she wears this dress.

The bodice is a pretty standard fitted bodice and the skirt is a gathered rectangle.  If I could do it all over again, I'd make the skirt a wedge-shape or a partial circle skirt but I'm okay with it this way.  Grace would prefer more twirl, but the fact that it is her favorite 'shiny gold' color makes up for the lack of a wide swishy twirl.  

The back is pretty plain.  Two small things to point out are the fact that I now know how to do a lapped zipper so the zipper is not exposed, and that I now know how to properly put the layers/trims together such that the trim looks nice and not like a bunchy mess (see last year's dresses for examples of exposed zippers and trims improperly applied...see, I'm learning!)  

One other small thing to point out about theses dresses is that they have sleeves.  That might not sound like a big deal, but I have a bit of a phobia with sleeves.  After a few too many improperly-eased-having-no-idea-what-I-was-doing sleeves in my past that turned out terrible, I gave up and have done mostly jumper style no-sleeve dresses for the last few years.  Now that I have good books to learn from, and have practiced a bunch, I find they are not so scary after all.  This year I decided beforehand that these dresses were going to have sleeves no matter what.  I even drafted them myself and they worked.  So, silly as it might sound, I am very proud of these sleeves and can say that my sleeve phobia is lessening as time goes by.  :)  

On to Leah's dress:  

I love this dress too because its different from others I've made.  Its not a standard fitted bodice (although its close), the skirt has a different shape to it, and it uses layers of fabric.  

  Its made from red satin and red lace.  The back photo shows the lace layer nicely.  The 'underdress' or the plain shiny red is red satin.  The 'jacket' part is red lace over a layer of red satin.   The dress looks different depending on how the light shines on the satin and lace and I like the effect.  The 'jacket'/overlay parts of the dress are piped in red to set them off a bit and add to the illusion of the 'jacket'.  

The bodice started with plain red satin, then I added the 'jacket' part and the waistline satin band with buckle.   The top (bodice) is actually all one piece - the 'jacket' is just layered and topstitched on.  So you can't lift away the top part of the 'jacket' the way you can the skirt overlay.   Leah and I both absolutely love the satin belt with a diamond buckle.  It adds just the right amount of bling to the front of the dress and Leah was admiring the buckle all through her Sunday School program.  :)

The skirt is two separate pieces.  One 'regular' underskirt of red satin and then the overskirt of satin and lace.  This young girl has gotten really tall and the design of the dress really emphasizes that.  Who said these girls could look so grown up so fast?!  Certainly not me.  :)  

These two dresses came together wonderfully and I'm sure they'll get lots of use all year long.  

Three cheers for custom fit, modest clothing for young girls!