The Garden Party Dress

Today I am debuting Sophie's birthday party dress, affectionately known as The Garden Party Dress in honor of her party theme. (Yes we are having a Garden Party!)


I used Pretty Prudent's One Shoulder Dress tutorial. They provide a free 2T pattern, which was the size I was trying to make, but I found that it was too big for my little sweet pea! Sophie is very petite for her age at only 23 lbs. so I had to trim about 2" off either side seam and take the elastic in at the top by several inches.

The top shoulder seam which measured 3" in the pattern had to be shorted to about 1 1/2". 3" stuck out beyond Sophie's shoulder and the ruffle wouldn't lay down flat. The trick with the ruffle is that the shoulder seam has to be shorter than the width of the ruffle in order for it lay down. Once these adjustments were made, it fit perfectly!

Also, I added rick rack trim at the bottom which I think really makes the dress POP! All you have to do is pin the rick rack at the very edge of your hem to the right side of the fabric. 

Sew in place. 

Then flip the rick rack to the underside of the dress so that only half of the rick rack is visible from the front. 

 Top stitch down using a 3mm stitch. 

This is how it looks when you're done:

You just need an extra 1/4" on your hem length to account for the tiny part of the fabric that gets folded under. 

I really like the style of this dress. You don't see many one-shouldered dresses for toddlers so it's very unique. I found the fabric at Walmart in one of those little pre-cut stash starter packs.

Sophie will be wearing this at her 3rd birthday party on Saturday so check back soon for some pictures!

UPDATE 4/22/13: See Sophie wearing the dress and check out the party details on this post.

Linking to these parties!