By the Seashore Knot Dress

Obvi, I made Lucca a knot dress.  I can't make a cute little garment for one kid and not make it for the other!  This fabric was bought with Lucca in mind... I though I might make her an Oliver and S Ice Cream Dress at one point... but never did.  Now I'm glad I was lazy, because this pattern suits it perfectly!  I really love that the tiny people playing at the beach are printed right side up AND upside down... no chance of sewing something on upside down!  I don't need to spend any more quality time with my seam ripper!

Some views of the dress, hanging pretty on my front door:

I used pretty simple coordintaing fabrics for the bodice and trim:  blue with white polka dots, and yellow with white polka dots.  I'm all for mixing patterns, but I really wanted the focus here to be on the beach party!  Having both other fabrics be polka dots, even though they are different colors, makes it bright and fun without being too distracting.

Of course, I made matching ruffle pants!  But, my friends, August in Boston means 90 degrees and a gagillion percent humidity, so my tiny model will not be wearing them for a while :)  

Outfit, complete:

Oh, these were both made from the same patterns as Raina's Rapunzel set in my last post.  Both patterns from Pink Poodle Bows on Etsy!

She pretty cute, even when I can't convince her to ham it up for the computer :).  (These are her 9 month pictures, taken 2 weeks late!)

"Knot" your average princess dress!

 (and ruffle pants!)

Raina picked out the Rapunzel fabric part of this outfit and asked me to "Sew a beautiful gown!"  It's been bopping around under my table for a while now, and I pulled it back out the other day after buying the Ava Knot Dress Pattern and Ruffle Pants Pattern from PinkPoodleBows on Etsy.  I love the way I was able to use it as a large portion of the dress without having it be the whole thing.  I love the way the purple floral and pink dots pop against it.  

I was actually pleasantly surprised at how quickly this outfit came together!  I expected the dress pattern to trip me up a few times, but it really only did at the final and very dreaded buttonhole step!  :)

Here's a front and back view of the dress by itself:

Very similar, except one side has the knots and one doesn't!

Rapunzel face close-up.  I love the sassy and defiant look on her face.  Very Raina!

Bodice topstitching.  I think my best topstitching over ruffles yet!

More fabric close-up.  I love the message... "Paint the world with imagination"  Raina does this every single day.

Knot detail.  I positioned this so you can't see my amateur buttonhole underneath!

Bodice and straps

Hemline... with no hemming!  I double the width of the skirt trim, folded it in half, and sewed it on to the bottom that way so there would be no hemming involved.  It is sewn on in a way that sandwiches the bottom raw edge of the skirt, hiding it completely.  I like the clean look it gives.


Honestly, the only thing I struggled with was the buttonhole - and that is no fault of the pattern's - just my own inexperience and general avoidance of them up until now!  I looked up a video on YouTube about how to make a button hole with my machine while I was giving Lucca her bedtime bottle last night... making sure of course to have the sound turned off on my iPhone.  I thought I'd just watch the steps in the video and figure it out.  HA!  No one told me that shutting off the sound on your phone does NOT mute YouTube!!  So there we are, dark, QUIET room, sleepy almost completely passed out baby...  (read the following with a southern twang, please)  "HI!  I'M CONNIE AND I..."   Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!  I have never shut my phone off faster. Fortunately it didn't take Lucca long to settle back to sleep, but I learned an important lesson!  :)

And then, of course, pants to match!  The same easy peasy ruffle pants pattern from the other day, just a few sizes larger!!

Noticed at the end that I managed to sew one ruffle on correctly so the design is right side up, but completely failed on the other leg!

I even topstitched the ruffled to make them lay nice and flat.  

Here's sassy Raina-punzel again!

Vie of the bottom half:

I took all of the pictures for this post while holding a baby on my hip.  I'm pretty pleased with them!

My intention was to not write this post until I had some pictures of Raina wearing her outfit to add... but she lives in bathing suits these days, and no bribe or sweet talk could get her to leave real clothes on long enough for a photo-op!  We have finally had to make a rule that bathing suits are not pajamas... but other than that I say it's summer, it's stinkin' hot, she's cute... why not let her wear her beloved rainbow bathing suit every second of every waking hour?  :)  I promise there will be real life picture of Lucca in her knot dress and ruffle pants when I finish those up... she's not old enough to fight back yet!