Although I had primarily planned on selfish sewing when I was away at Sewjourn a couple of weeks ago (yes!  It’s already two weeks ago – time does fly and all those cliches) there was no way that I could envisage coming home without one thing for each of the girls.  So I sewed Clare a dress and coordinating leggings.

The dress is the Belinda dress from Go To Patterns, and the leggings are the Go To Leggings.  The stripe was from GJs, and the print from Anna‘s stash.  The pattern description from the website is as follows: A girls’ dress sewing pattern designed with comfort in mind! This adorable dress has a fitted knit bodice, puff sleeves, a gathered skirt, banded hemline and a fun kangaroo pocket.

This was quite a straightforward sew, although gathering always takes a little bit of time and there were gathers at the sleeve head, at the waist seam and at the hem band. I used my usual method of sewing two parallel rows of stitching with a long stitch length, and drawing up the gathers to fit. The majority of the construction was on the overlocker.  There is a little bit of topstitching on the neck and pocket bands, but that is all.

Clare enjoyed working out what fabric she wanted where, and the end placement of stripe versus print has worked out quite nicely balanced. Both fabrics were of a lovely quality with similar amounts of heft and stretch. This was a pleasure to sew. And check out the front pocket – it goes right through, as well as down to the hem!

I sewed the size 8 for Clare, which the pattern says is for a 26″ chest (she measures 25″). Clare is 136cm tall, and the fit of the size 8 is good. The leggings are cut at size 7/8 width, with 9/10 length. The construction is fairly standard for garments of this type. And yes, I did match the stripes where needed!

Cosy, warm and comfortable. A definite hit for a winter dress!