“You’re quite creative; you could just whip something up…”
It was Monday afternoon. I was planning out my week and liaising with my neighbour about when our kids can go to each other’s houses to play after school. She says ‘It’s school disco on Thursday’. Errrr what?! I had no idea! One of those instances where your child loses the important letter and you’re totally oblivious to what’s going on!
As I’m waiting to collect my daughter at hometime that day, I chat to another mum and I’m telling her how I didn’t even realise it was the disco on the Thursday, and that leads her to inform me that it’s Hawaiian themed! I feel so unprepared! She suggests my daughter could just wear generic summer clothing – shorts, tshirt, sunglasses etc, but then says “Mind you, you’re quite creative; you could just whip something up, couldn’t you?”, to which I laughed and said that I could, but I wouldn’t really have time as I knew I had my Minerva dress to make by the following Tuesday, and having made plans for the weekend, that basically meant I’d need to get it made that week.
But the thing is…I knew I already had the perfect Hawaiian fabric in my stash. I got it in a swap, so long ago I can’t even remember which swap or who it was from, but that 1.4m of fabric had been waiting to be made into a little girl’s dress and now it’s time had come! I had even bought a matching zip, matching thread and I had prewashed the fabric! Past Louise was extremely organised!
That night once the kids were in bed I got to work. I chose New Look 6205 because it’s such a lovely style, but I needed to trace age 5 this time as my daughter’s previous versions of this dress no longer fit. And, y’know, she’s 5. I wanted to fully line the dress to make the white part of the fabric stand out properly, so I cut a full lining out of plain white cotton. The only thing I would have ideally had to hand would have been either purple or white bias binding for the neckline, but I made do with hot pink as it’s turned to the inside anyway.
New Look 6205
I lined the bodice as directed in the pattern, but the pattern doesn’t include instructions for a skirt lining. Having made several versions of this dress with various different types of lining, I knew what I wanted to do for this particular fabric: I wanted to ‘underline’ the skirt and have it as one piece with the main fabric. This would help to keep the pleats together and to keep the opacity of the white parts of the main fabric.
New Look 6205 – back view
The final touch was to make the flower corsage. I had a flower garland from a Hawaiian party a few years ago so I detached a couple of the red flowers for contrast and sewed them onto the dress with a lovely big green flower button in the middle. I then made two co-ordinating ‘corsages’ for my neighbour’s two daughters who also went to the disco. In fact the younger of the two sisters wore a dress I made for my daughter last year which can pass for a Hawaiian print too!
SO. MUCH. CUTE.
I finished making the dress on Tuesday night about 24 hours after I started it. It didn’t take that long to make of course, I did things like sleeping and eating, the school run and taking my son to the park etc during that 24 hours as well! I was pretty pleased with the outcome though and I still had time to make my Minerva dress the same week! Hurrah!
New Look 6205
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Thread Carefully 
What a lovely dress, and your daughter is so sweet! Nice work on the last minute save
Thanks Kerry. I am highly motivated by deadlines!
That is absolutely gorgeous. I love it when a plan all comes together! My eldest girl is 5 so I shall be blatantly copying – regardless of any Hawaiian themes!! Those pleats are awesome with that print!
The pleats are a nice design feature, it’s true!
I love the line, ‘you’re quite creative’!!!!!
Deadline suit me too. It’s just best not to have too many in the same week!
Fabulous dress btw.
Yes haha! Made me laugh. It was good to feel the pressure that week but I wouldn’t want it all the time!
That is so cute. I’m really impressed that you had all the notions and lining you needed so were ready to go. Love the “you’re quite creative” comment too, I’m sure I’ve had that said to me before.
It was like some kind of miracle: I’m sure I’m not usually that organised! I don’t normally pre-wash fabric until I’m about to use it so that was particularly surprising. Perhaps I almost used it another time and had pre-washed but then changed my mind! Or the person who gave it to me at the swap had pre-washed it!!
Urgh! I hate it when the little notes from school get lost, and they do that more often than seems possible. Or maybe that’s just my eldest son. 😉 So glad past you was so on top of things and that you got this absolutely adorable dress finished in time! Great job!
P.S. LOL’ing at “you’re quite creative, you could just whip something up”–as though it takes no time at all!
My daughter brings home lots of useless crap but forgets the important things like official letters! I was pleased to rise to the challenge of ‘just whipping something up’ – think I managed that one! 🙂
Oh my goodness! How gorgeous is Miss Thread Carefully in her Hawaiian dress?! I hope she had a lovely time, and I bet she had the best outfit!
She did have fun, she was very hyper when I picked her up! Everyone looked fab – really bright sunshiny colours!
Adorable! Gosh, you are so clever making a dress with pleats and a zip at such short notice!
Your daughter looks so lovely in her dress – it’s a beautiful picture! My daughter has a musical performance on Saturday and a school play during the week and needs a horrendous amount of things at the last minute, sadly nothing I can sew though!
Louise
Ooh, what is she doing in the musical performance? Does she play an instrument? Hope the play goes well! You will be a proud mum!
She is singing and dancing – singing is more her thing, none of our are natural dancers! Yes I will be a bit tearful and very proud!
Super Mum! Your daughter is so cute and looks gorgeous in the dress, you’d never know it was a last minute save!
It’s already been worn a few times, she really likes it!
This is adorable!
Thanks Sonja 🙂
Oh how cute!
Cute dresses, cute children 😍