Little Miss has requested a dresses that button up in the front. She find’s them easier to get into by herself. Having failed to find just the right sewing pattern to satisfy her wishes I am endeavouring to hack this Burda 7179 ladies dress sewing pattern to fit nine year old Little Miss.
Burda 7179 Sewing Pattern
Previously I’ve been making Little Miss’s dresses from the Wildflower Dress by Peek-A-Boo patterns which I absolutely love. It’s nice and easy to sew with a big twirly skirt or optional A-Line skirt for directional print fabrics.
For her school dresses I’ve been sewing up the Jump Rope from Oliver and S which Little Miss also loves. It’s a much more involved pattern but oh so for worth it to see her walking into school in such a beautifully finished school dress. Unfortunately Little Miss has just grown out of the largest size.
I’ve been googling, trying to find an alternative but without much success. Half of the problem is that I don’t know what this style of dress is called, in the UK we would call it a shirt dress but that gives me a lot of results T-Shirt dresses. It seems to be a very old fashioned, vintage style dress that’s not popular for children’s clothes anymore.
I had a bit of brainwave and thought I’d try to adapt an adults pattern. I picked up this Burda 7179 Sewing Pattern at a car boot sale for next to nothing. I actually bought it for myself as this style of vintage collared dress flatters my curvy figure very nicely.
I took Little Miss’s measurements and was surprised to find that she wasn’t too far off the size 6. The only significant alterations needed were to the height. The dress is made to fit a lady with a height of 168cm, Little Miss stands at just 126cm. Taking 40cm off the length of the skirt left it looking ridiculous so I shortened the shirt by 20cm instead.
In hindsight I should have also shortened the bodice by the remaining 20cm. Or maybe have split the difference and shortened both the skirt and bodice by 15cm each. To be perfectly honest I was intimidated by shortening the bodice and rushing to get this dress finished for an event that Little Miss had to attend and needed a smart dress for. The dress looks OK but it would have fitted much better with the shorter bodice.
Unicorn Denim Sewing Fabric
I love denim. I like how it looks, breathable, comfortable, immensely practical and hardwearing. It goes with everything and is right for just about every occasion imaginable. I live in denim.
So when I saw this unicorn print chambray on sale in my local craft shop I knew my Little Miss would absolutely love it.
Unfortunately it was in their closing down sale so yay I got a bargain but booo no more local fabric shop. I say this all the time but please, if you’re lucky enough to still have a local craft shop and you want to keep having one, spend your money with them or they won’t be around for much longer.
The fabric behaved like a dream. I’m so used to using cheap synthetic fabrics that are difficult to work with so sewing with a good quality cotton fabric was a real luxury.
Sewing Thread
I use Coats Moon Thread for all of my sewing projects. It’s a fantastic all rounder great for machine sewing, hand sewing, quilting and top stitching. Best of all it’s fantastic value. I use it for literally everything!
I hope you have enjoyed reading about my adventures in sewing.
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Pin It Now, Sew It Later
I do hope my sewing project has inspired you to have ago at sewing and altering your own children’s dresses.
Pop this post in your Pinterest board so you can find it later.
A Little Bit About Me . . .
Hi there! Thank you so much for stopping by my little corner of the interweb. I’m Bridie.
I’ve been crafting since I was toddling around craft shows while my mum sold knitting yarn. She used to buy me a new craft kit to keep me busy. When I grew up I set up my own online craft shop and loved every minute of it. There’s is nothing like the thrill of getting to be one of the first people to see new craft collections.
I sold my business to focus on raising my two children. They’re still young so for now I’m blogging my craft projects and sharing tutorials to inspire you. I love creating handmade cards with digital stamps. I scrapbook to preserve precious memories of my kids childhoods. I knit and sew to keep my kids in comfortable, unique clothes they love. I create batch cooked meals that give me more time to craft. And because I’m not currently earning I do all of this on a teeny tiny budget.
I’ll show you all the best ways to craft on a tight budget so you can still create a life you love.
I’ve included links to my favourite retailers for the products I’ve used to make my crafts. Click on any of the product images and links for full details. If you decide to buy any of these products I may get a small percentage of what you spend. There’s no cost to you at all.
Aran Knitting Baby Baby Scrapbooking Batch Cooking Beginner Scrapbooking Beginner Sewing Pattern Birthday Cards Budget Recipes Cards for Children Cards for Girls Chicken Recipes Christmas Christmas Cards Craft Sensations Dovecraft Easy Sewing Pattern Elasticated Channel First Edition Free Knitting Pattern Free Sewing Pattern Healthy Eating Healthy Recipe My Minds Eye Papermania Peek-a-Boo Patterns Polkadoodles ProMarkers Scrapbooking Sewing Sewing for Kids Sewing Pants Sewing Tops Sewing with Jersey Sewing with Wovens Simply Creative Sizzix Slow Cooker Recipes Soup Recipes Spellbinders Stitch Upon a Time Tim Holtz Top Stitching Vegetable Gardening Winsor Newton XCut
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