Holly’s Daisy Dress.
As I am expecting a baby at the end of this month, I was very excited to be able to sew up a cute little outfit for her for my next blog post. Felicity Fabrics have a gorgeous array of pretty cottons to choose from so I was thoroughly spoilt for choice with this make!
I decided on this bright red cotton which has teeny tiny daisies all over it, rather appropriate that I then picked the Poppy and Jazz (by Sew Over It) Daisy Dress pattern to make it in! The cotton is super stable whilst still being lightweight and has a lovely crisp nature. The background is a really lovely bright red and I just love the ditsy daisy design. This dress looks great with a contrast fabric as the collar and I decided to use some scraps of a white cotton jacquard I had left over for this part. I also made sure I prewashed this fabric partly to account for any shrinkage but also as I’m no doubt going to be washing it fairly often, I wanted to avoid the red colour from the cotton potentially running into the white collar in the future.
The Daisy Dress comes in sizes 0-3 months, all the way up to 6 years old, which I thought was a great size range for a childs pattern and allows the pattern to be used for many years to come. I have read that Poppy and Jazz patterns come up a little large and even though I made up the smallest size for my version, I think it’ll be a little while before she fits into it!
The PDF is easy to print and assemble being only 16 pages long, it didn’t take very long for me to cut and stick it together. There’s a surprising number of pattern pieces though for this dress, it has facings, a back button band, a collar as well as sleeves. The back is also finished with buttons and buttonholes but this could always be changed to poppers if desired, or even velcro and faux buttons!
Being that I was making such a teeny dress, it turned out to be a rather involved make. I didn’t realise initially that bias binding was used to finish the armholes. It does actually mention in the supplies section bias binding is needed but I must have missed this before I started. This turned out to be the trickiest part to sew – it was so fiddly getting this on neatly, and I ended up handstitching it down as I just knew trying to do it on my machine would be a nightmare. Luckily I had some red cotton bias binding in my stash as I really didn’t fancy making some, but it was possibly slightly narrow for the job which is why I struggled. Also I think with any of the larger size ranges it will have been easier to sew, because of how small the armhole was may have been why it was so tricky!
The rest of the pattern came together very satisfyingly, the facings are understitched giving a nice neat finish. There are markings for the buttons or poppers on the pattern pieces but I just used my Simflex expanding sewing gauge to mark where I wanted them down the back. I gave the collar area a good press once I was finished as this area is a little bulky and I wanted the collar to sit nice and flat. I used white poppers down the back too which I think look great with the collar and daisies in the fabric. I lastly added a ‘Cute as a Daisy’ label to the back hem, which I thought was just perfect to finish it off!
Overall I’m really happy with how this turned out, the cotton was super stable to work with but still lightweight enough to make a dress. I think you could also make a lovely button up shirt or blouse with this fabric for an adult, or even some pretty pyjama bottoms, I don’t think it’s too child like at all. I can’t wait until she arrives and one day fits into it! It’ll look so cute paired with some white tights and a little red headband!
Happy sewing!
Holly x
