Ruffles, take two!

Attempt number two at this ruffle dress.  I think it turned out really cute.  Although, I’m still trying to decide if it’s too much ruffle.  Maybe the ruffle on the bottom was too much? 

I have some purple knit fabric that I got to make this same dress for one of the baby girl’s friends, but I’m not sure if I like it enough to gift it.  I still have this fear that the clothes I make will fall apart after one washing, so I did put this dress through the wash once to make sure it would hold up.  ha! 

Anyway, I’m discovering how difficult it can be to get a good picture of a 10-month-old.  She’ll stand all day long, except when I need a picture of her standing.

And she won’t ever push her walker that we got for her, but she’ll push the step stool we have in the kitchen.  When you’re wearing a ruffly dress, what else would you do but push a step stool around?

After many takes, a somewhat decent picture of the dress:

I think the neck is still kind of big, so not sure what went wrong.  I used the method suggested from the tutorial to attach the neck binding, but I don't think that would have made it so much bigger.  It just fits over her head, so maybe it's supposed to be that big.  It just looks bigger than the picture from the pattern.  But it's also a 12 month sized pattern, so maybe she'll grow into that collar.

So, here’s the Hanna Andersson dress that inspired the tutorial that I used.  It’s $38.

 
I got the organic knit fabric for this dress for $7 a yard.  The pattern cost $4, and I’m sure I’ll use it again, since it goes up to size 8.  $11 total.  Much better than $38, no?

A couple of things I did differently from the tutorial:
- I cut the ruffle strips 3 inches wide instead of 2.5 inches.  I wanted a little more overlap over the row of ruffles below it.
- I did an elastic casing for the sleeves instead of elastic thread.  I have elastic thread, just not brave enough to use it yet!