Girl's Gathered Dress + Liberty Tana Lawn "Poppy's Meadow" (Little Land of Rhyme, AW 2017)

Completed another sewing project this week, right after the "Lilac" voile girl's dress last week (posted here). Another simple piece — a girl's gathered dress in Liberty Tana lawn "Poppy's Meadow" (yellow colourway) from the Liberty Little Land of Rhyme collection (Autumn/Winter 2017). This is a pretty Liberty print that I bought the fabric on Liberty online in that same year. It was originally earmarked this for Blythe doll clothing, but I ended up using it in this dress for my niece. She was not yet conceived at the time I bought this fabric.

Girl's gathered dress in Liberty Tana lawn "Poppy's Meadow", Little Land of Rhyme AW 2017.

The pattern used for this dress is Pattern D from the Japanese pattern book Chiisana Kodomo no Tezukuri Fuku小さな子どもの手づくり服 by Shingaki Miho新垣 美穗.¹ I made it in size 90 this time because the "Lilac" voile dress made for her last week was, as suspected, a size too large. Although she was able to wear the "Lilac" dress, it will clearly take another year before the dress will fit her (though it will still be loose-fitting). But well, kids grow so quickly, and she might outgrow it before we know it....

If there is one change I could redo in this dress, it would be the bias binding around the neckline and armholes. According to the pattern book, the bias tape for the armholes are sewn on first, then the bias tape for the neckline, over the ends of the armholes' bias tape. Maybe it's the way I sewed them on, but the armholes didn't sit well, especially at the shoulder peak and the pit. So an after-thought was perhaps it would've sat better if I'd sewn on the bias tape for the neckline first, then the bias tape for the armholes (over the tape for the neckline), with the bias tape ends at the pit. Hmmm...something to stew on...

This is the 2nd item I've made from this pattern book. The first was Pattern N, the raglan sleeved dress made for a friend's daughter in 2019, using nani IRO double gauze cotton (posted here). This time, I did button-loop closures instead. (I really didn't want to sew buttonholes.) Botched it a bit, so this is an area I need to work on. Fortunately my mistake isn't really noticeable. For the buttons, I used the 2 plastic flower buttons leftover from that same raglan sleeve dress I made in 2019. (Bought 5 pieces at the time, from Spotlight PS.)

Flower buttons for the button-loop closure.

To maximise this fabric, I took extra, extra, extra care when tracing the pattern and cutting the fabric. Have some decent sized remnants left, sufficient to make a small quantity of Blythe doll dresses (maybe 4 pieces?), so I feel like none of this precious and pretty fabric will be wasted. This feels like an achievement, considering this fabric was £22.50/m (about SGD40/m then).

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1.「小さな子どもの手づくり服」miit 新垣美穗(著)、文化出版局 (2018/4/13). Chiisana Kodomo no Tezukuri Fuku, translates to "Small Children's Handmade Clothes". Author: Shingaki Miho. Publisher: Bunka Publishing Bureau (13 April 2018) (Amazon Jp).