Dress for a Bear ~ All Done!

With Miss Missy's birthday fast approaching, and Mooch's dress still not completed, I sent Miss Missy off for a play-date, so that I could get to work.

First I added the skirt.  This was simply a strip cut from the full width of the fabric.  When I added the lace at the bottom, I decided to have it peeping out from under the hem, as it seemed a little wide for the scale of the dress.  I stitched the centre back seam, then put box pleats across the front, in reference to the pleats in Miss Missy's dress, and ran gathering threads round at the back.  I figured gathering the back was just easier than working out the math to ensure that the pleats would fit!

Then on to the sleeves.  At first I thought I would do a simple frill, but as I was messing about with the pattern, I didn't feel that it looked quite right.  I then thought of creating a little cap sleeve by using a deep frill shape and gathering the hem edge.  I cut a piece of scrap fabric to try it out, and was very pleased with the way it looked.  So on to the real thing.

Again, I added lace peeping out from under the hem.  I ran gathering threads along the hem line stitching, and then attached a piece of narrow ribbon, pulling up the gathering threads to fit, and so created a frill at the hem.  I tried using elastic at first, but it got too stretched out, and wouldn't bounce back to its original length, so that didn't work out.  I then gathered the armhole edge and stitched the armhole seam.  At the underarm, I simply folded the seam allowance over and stitched it down.

I am so happy with the way the dress looks.

I think Mooch looks very sweet.  I'm sure she likes her new dress...what do you think?