the Maddy dress
February 17th, 2010
Sometime ago my mom gave me some “vintage” patterns for kid’s clothing. Since vintage is so in these days, I decided to give one of the simpler patterns a try.
Enter Burda #10464.
Definitely 1970s. Bell bottomed pants, large collars, dresses mid-thigh. Not to mention the fabric choices in the illustrations! And the hair.
Looking past all of that, though, the dress itself is not that vintage. Timeless, I suppose.
So I forged ahead and decided to make version C of the dress. My mom had saved all the pattern pieces and the instruction sheet. The German instruction sheet. I have to say, that as far as instruction sheets go this one was minimal. You really have to have some advanced knowledge of sewing and dress construction (not to mention be able to read German) in order to follow these instructions. Actually, if you have advanced knowledge of sewing and clothing construction you don’t really need the instructions.
The only really useful instruction on this sheet was this:
WICHTIG! Naht- und Saumzugaben mu¨ssen beim Zuschneiden zugegeben werden!
Which, when I read it now 24hrs after finishing the dress I believe says:
WARNING! Seam allowances must be added when cutting the material.
Yes, I am reading that now. Yes, I already finished the dress. No, I did not add seam allowances. Sigh. No wonder the size 5 that I made barely fits Maddy. Oops.
Anyway, I dove into my material stash and found some fabric. I mixed and matched and hemmed and hawed and finally came to a decision based mostly on availability of what I had on hand and partly on colour combination.
The finished product:
The piping around the armholes was my doing. The topstitching around the bodice was my doing. I even experimented with some French seams down the side… not entirely sure I did it correctly, but it’s done. I didn’t do the pockets.
I think this dress would look sweet with some contrast piping down the front seams. And next time I make it I’ll add some seam allowances!
7 Responses to “the Maddy dress”
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Truly adorable. I am so impressed with your sewing abilities. My mother made my clothes when I was a kid and I did love them (especially the amazing Hallowe’en costumes). I wish I learned to machine sew.
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Greetings from Anne: I´m supposed to tell you, that with three children there is no time to sew a dress! So what are you doing?
It looks pretty. I just did something like that for Marie. So I know, what a good job you did by “The piping around the armholes”.
But I realy admire, how you get along with all the stuff waiting for you every morning. Hut ab!
Greetings from ulla
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So adorable!
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Really cute Katia! I love the fabrics together. You need to talk to my mom. She has tons of fabric waiting for a useful home.
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very pretty – will look lovely in the spring.
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she looks like a sweet buttercup. Brava!
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Well done Katia! Maddy looks adorable in that dress so, just get to work: Maja needs one too!!!
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