February Stash Busting: A dress made with love

As I am about to embark on a month off, I haven't had much of a chance to put too much thought into making new garments. I've been finishing off some work for other people, and doing a few quotes. I did however want to try to do something for the February stashbusting challenge: To make something for someone else from stash fabric.

I had just the thing in mind - a dress for my daughter that has been in the works for almost a year. My sketch for this dress was dated 30 March 2012, and I made the pattern for it late last year. When I went to cut it out this week, I almost decided to start again, wondering if I should make a larger pattern so the dress will get another summer out of it.

I decided to plough ahead with the pattern I had already done, firstly so that I could be guaranteed to finish the dress within a day, and secondly, knowing I can always make a bigger one next summer anyway. Maybe she'll like it so much that she'll want to wear it all winter with tights and a shirt underneath!

The inspiration for this dress came from an offcut I had from making daycare sheets (cotton poplin from Spotlight). It was too pretty to hide away with all the other offcuts  for all eternity, and there was just enough left to trim a dress with. The zipper and thread were also existing in my stash, and rather than do 2 layers of fabric in the bodice, I used some bias tape that I had leftover from another project to bind the neck and armholes. The hot pink fabric is a fine cotton poplin from E&M Greenfield, which I had bought to try out some little girl's dress designs. I guess that makes this the first prototype!

So what's the verdict? I think the recipient of this work of love is quite happy with it, and I am too.