I think that I have mentioned before that my daughter is in an only dresses stage. It drives me a bit bonkers, but I am trying to be cool about it. She will still wear some of her pants, like her Hudson Mini pants as long as she can wear a tutu over them. It's quite a spectacle, but she is 5 so I guess we can roll with it.
I am trying to be smart and only make things for her that I know she will actually wear, which means that there are a lot of little girl dresses and skirts in my future. I decided to start with the
Charlie dress by Mingo and Grace because I liked it's simple lines and modern cut. I also read that it is called the Charlie dress because it's patterned after the dresses that the little girls would wear on Charlie Brown. The nostalgia in me just made me like this pattern even more.
Let's talk fabric first. I am obsessed with
this fabric
. It's a really soft linen and cotton blend that I bought from
fabric.com. It has almost a spongey quality that reminds me a bit of double gauze. I used the blue on this dress, but also bought some of
the tan which you will be seeing soon on one of my new patterns as a sample. I am thinking about buying a couple more yards too so I can sew my son up some overalls in them for the summer.
As you can see I played with the stripes a bit to add some interest and I am happy with the way it turned out. I think that this pattern is simple enough that you could get really creative and make up several versions that look completely different from one another. I have plans for a couple more for sure.
The
pattern was really easy, although admittedly I didn't follow the directions at all. I have my own methods that I like for bias facing so I just did it without referring to the instructions.
As for sizing, I knew from reading some other reviews that the bodice tends to fit wide so I went with a size 4 for her even though she almost always wears a size 5. The 4 fits well in the chest and shoulders, although maybe still on the big side a bit. I meant to add length to compensate, but ran out of fabric. I think that the length is great now, but she is growing like a weed so who knows how long it will fit. I will definitely add length to the next version that I sew.
Outfit Details:
