manda made it: Easter 2015 Vintage McCalls 1921 and Simplicity 4018

Since Easter is earlier this year and we have a new baby to keep us busy, I went for simple dresses this year.

The pattern for the wrap dresses for my big girls is from 1954 (Thanks, Etsy!) It was simple to put together and required very few adjustments. I had to take them in along the side seams for both girls and add 1.5" in length for my oldest. I also increased the size of her pockets by .5" on all sides to maintain proportions on the larger skirt, but that was it.

My buttonhole foot does not love bumps, so I made sure to lay out my pattern pieces to keep the button tabs free from embroidery and placed my buttonholes before adding the bias tape.

I used some tear-away stabilizer when adding the buttonholes, as I was concerned that the thin fabric tabs would get caught in the feed dogs. This worked well.

Since I was on a time crunch, I took a few shortcuts. I pinked seams instead of finishing, omitted stay stitching :/ and applied the bias tape by simply sandwiching the fabric inside and stitching it down, instead of doing it correctly... They may not last as long this way, but they did get done in time for Easter!

Wrong side of dress, pinked seams

I did take a minute to sew my bias tape together before starting so I'd have enough length for the whole dress. Here's a reminder about how to do that:

Place bias tape right sides together at right angle, with a little tail hanging over each side. Stitch on diagonal. Open out and cut away excess.

Mercifully, last year's bloomers still fit the big girls and the baby has a store-bought eyelet pair, so no extra sewing there!

Front of larger dress, back of small. Last year's bloomers

The pattern for the baby dress is from the early 1960's and on loan from my Mama Leah. As a size 1, it was still too big for my 3-month-old, so I made some adjustments at the collar and armhole when laying out my pattern. This worked fairly well and I only needed to take up an additional ~.5" at the shoulder seams for a good fit. The length was much more than the pattern called for (since the pattern was too big to start with), but I ended up liking it, so opted not to shorten. If I'd had more time, I might have added some bias-bound patch pockets to the front of the dress, but this will have to do for now!