How was your weekend? We put our Christmas tree up on Friday afternoon and had a nice relaxing Saturday and Sunday. Then we woke up to find out that our youngest now has the flu. Too bad, I was hoping we hadn’t passed it along last week! Life goes on… and today I’m posting another Sally Dress while she plays on the tablet. I am so happy with this dress! Sometimes I sew something and it doesn’t turn out quite like I expected – this is not one of those times (hooray!) and I’m super pleased.

The fabric for this dress is one of the reasons I love it so much. The salmon pink/coral fabric is Dill Blossom by Robert Kaufman. I got it from Studio Fabric Shop at the Creativ Festival with this Sally Dress in mind. Since the interview with Devorah (owner of Studio Fabric Shop) was on Friday I thought I would finish and post the dress this Monday. And, just in case you haven’t signed up yet – you can win 10 fat quarters from Devorah’s shop. Just click over to the interview post and sign up using the Rafflecopter widget.

My second experience making the Sally dress was so much better than the first. I love my youngest’s green pintucked Sally, but it was tedious folding the pleats and it doesn’t slip over her head without some uncomfortable tugging. So, of course (again) without making a muslin first, I added a zipper to the back of my oldest’s version. It didn’t take a lot more work, but it turns out she doesn’t need it! Ah well. At least I was able to make this Sally fit the way it is supposed to. I see making quite a few more of this style with longer sleeves for the winter – since she insists on likes to wear dresses most days.

I added a Scirocco-style pleat to the centre front of the dress again. And some lace my mom sent to me that used to be my great-grandma’s. I don’t usually add lace to things – but the bodice seemed a bit plain without it. I was a bit worried it would make it look a lot like a nightgown, but dressing it up with tights and black shoes avoided that.

The sleeves on the original Sally dress pattern are elbow length – so I went searching for some woven sleeve examples. I’m always hesitant to add long sleeves to a dress made of woven fabric. My personal style has more to do with comfort most days than actual trendy-following style. So when I plan for my girls I want them to be comfy too. Woven sleeves generally seem tight and uncomfortable to me, but when I saw the A Happy Tunic tutorial over at Simple Simon and Co. I fell in love with the sleeves. They are perfect on the Sally dress. I extended the lines of the sleeve straight down to my daughter’s arm length and added 1″ to the straight side of the sleeve pattern for some extra room and so I could add some gentle gathers at the top of the sleeves.

Again, the large Sally pockets are really cute – they are made with the Lens Mills bow fabric I got at Creativ. I think they help to avoid the nightgown look as well. I used the same fabric on the bias tape to finish the sleeve ends and the bodice lining. I love that this dress turned out looking really appropriate for a little girl – but isn’t too little for her. My daughter loves the neckline since it matches her favorite square neckline knit shirts that she’s outgrowing. Maybe I could use this pattern to make her a few more.

I’m off to care for my littlest. Thankfully the medicine has kicked in and she’s up and about, albeit a tad wobbly. See you soon!