Apple Dress

This was supposed to be a Boden knock-off. When the girls and I cut up the Boden catalogue to decoupage a shoe box for doll clothes storage, this little cutie caught my eye:

Mini Boden S/S 2014

Boden works so well because the fabrics are so fantastic. I can't imagine the resources they must have, just for fabrics.

When I saw this one on sale at The Village Haberdashery, I knew I had to get it and have a go at a re-creation (OK, a knock-off). It is called Sevenberry, made by Japan. Sewn up, it is not as red as the Boden fabric and comes out looking white with red spots.

It didn't quite work out but I am not ready to declare it a fail.

I drafted the pattern using the bodice that I resized for the Angel Dress. She has almost grown out of this now so I need to re-draft a new bodice block. I increased the front by 2 inches for the pleat. For the facing, I cut another bodice piece, without the pleat, but ended it about 3 inches below the arm.

I’m going make a plan to do a tutorial for the steps involved in assembling a dress like this. It is not difficult but there are a lot of steps. I want to document them, both for myself, and because I hope they will be useful for someone else.

I had a regular zip that came from my red Christmas dress so I used that instead of my favourite invisible zips. I don’t have much practice at a lapped zip so it was pretty bad. I should probably just make them exposed.

I wasn’t in love with how the whole dress was looking so I went over most of it with red topstitching. I love topstitching! I added two rows at the hem.

I had these cute wooden buttons so they went on the front with red thread.

The cost of the project was £9.00, all on 1.5m of fabric. I had enough fabric left over to make a matching doll’s dress and some trim. (Maybe that should be a £6.00 child's dress and a £3.00 doll's dress?)