The Anna Easter Dress

If you are a crafty blog stalker, like me, you should really check out Craftiness Is Not Optional.  That Jess is an inspiration!  She has two little girls so has some really great ideas for girl clothes.  And since I love making the Clever Girl cute things to wear, I get all sorts of ideas from Jess's blog.   For Easter, I decided to create an Anna Dress.  There is a handy sew-along on her blog, so I won't go through all of that.  I'll just show you what I came up with!!

My Anna Dress has a much fuller skirt than the pattern states.  MUCH fuller.  That wasn't totally planned, but I figured I might as well use up the fabric instead of leaving a small bit.  And really, what is wrong with a super twirly skirt when you are almost 4 years old??  NOTHING!!  So, super twirly is what we have.

I made two other changes.  When I created the waistband, it was humongous.  I obviously had a math mis-hap along the way.  No problem, I just opened up a seam and threaded in some 3/4 inch elastic between the dress and the lining to cinch it up.  So this waistband does not lay nice and smooth like the original Anna dress, which makes me a little sad.  If I make this again, I'll get the waistband to fit better I think.  

Also, the pattern has you cut the top part so the sides go out a bit, allowing for more puffy blouse.  I didn't like how this looked on my kiddo, so I re-cut the blouse to eliminate some of those gathers.  Maybe my pattern was just a bit too big overall in the beginning?  I tend to think bigger is better when it comes to kids clothes, so that is a distinct possibility!  The Clever Girl is thin but with a little round tummy, so maybe some of these issues has to do with her overall shape.  Who knows?

The important thing is that I was happy with the outcome of the dress, and the MOST important part is that the Clever Girl was happy with the dress!  She picked the buttons herself.  Good eye, huh?