A rainbow ruffle dress for the baby!

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So 7 weeks ago (thank you pinterest for keeping track of when I pinned something) I happened to see a picture of a cute dress.  I thought it would be perfect for Little Missy but I had an idea of how I would change it.  Today, after a process that I'll admit to in my notes below I got it all finished and watching that cute girl run around in it this evening I am SO happy I made the changes I did.

Here she is!

Isn't she a cutie - even when she's giving the stink-eye.

So, I didn't take pictures so I don't necessarily have a tutorial for you but I am going to walk you through how I made it because I learned a LOT of things that might help you out if you want to make a dress like this.

This is the original dress I saw. 

It is of course adorable.  It is also $55.  As much as I might wish that I had unlimited money to spend on my children's clothes I do not and so $55 for one cute dress is not just a little but a LOT out of my price range, so I hit up the fabric store and tried to figure out how I wanted to make the dress.  I knew I wanted the ruffles but I wasn't sure if I was going to just make the dress and sew the ruffles onto it or if I was going to have each ruffle be it's own piece, option #2 won out.  So here you go, a pictureless {kind of} tutorial.

For this darling rainbow dress I started with The Brooke Peasant Dress.  You can find a lot of free peasant dress patterns and a lot of ways for free that people show you how you can make your own pattern but since I love this style and like being able to quickly have the sizes and measurements I need without having to make it up each time it just made sense for me to buy a pattern and I love that this one comes with all the sleeve options AND the cute doll dress measurements.

So, I figured out my measurements for the size 18 month dress and then figured out how many colors I wanted to use and divided it.  I think my overall pattern called for like 22" in length and so I had my 6 colors and so I gave myself 6 pieces cut to 4" (it called for 3.6666 but I figured with seam allowance I would want a little extra).  I will tell you right now that is not the best way to figure it out!  When I did that I ended up with my dress being too long by 1 whole color so I took out the yellow...

This is what it looked like the 1st time I completed the dress {Monday}.

Do you see the problems?  To me there are a few - 1.  The yellow is missing {cry}.  2.  The ruffles don't come down far enough on top of each other so you can see the fabric between each layer :( not what I was hoping for.  I had given myself an inch - the ruffles were an inch wider than the dress piece and it wasn't enough {in my opinion}.

To fix the problem I took an inch out of each color dress piece - it kept the length of the ruffle but made it hang on top of the next piece more.  The problem that created was that it made the dress up there 4" shorter...not a good look for a dress!

So - what I had to do was take the green and orange pieces apart and add in the yellow ruffle and dress piece.  That gave me back just over 2" so it was long enough but the ruffles still hung over each other so you couldn't see the dress piece under them.

My recommendations {if you want them} - your ruffle piece should be 2" longer than your dress piece.  My ruffles are also double the width of the dress piece.  Her measurements were for the dress to be 16" wide {2 pieces} so I cut my ruffles 32" {2 pieces} and just did a LOT of ruffling.  My next recommendation would be to figure out exactly how long you want your dress to be and don't be silly like me and just guess - actually figure out your seam allowance and do the math beforehand...then you won't like me have to take the dress apart to fix your mistake.

Thankfully, I got lucky and it all worked out and I am SO excited with her cute rainbow dress for St. Patrick's day and this spring/summer {and I got to try out a new style of headband that I am really liking on her}.

I KNOW without pictures this is not a very helpful post but if you have any questions just comment and I'll answer them.  I will try {sooner than later but no promises on an exact date}to do something like this again and actually take pictures that might {hopefully} better explain what I did this time.

Here are a whole lot more pictures of this little cutie and her new dress.  Oh and I just realized that I should probably note that the original dress was $55 {before shipping}, the fabric I bought was $2 a yard and I only needed 1/2 yard of each {with leftovers enough to make what compares to a $14 headband} - so for $6 in material Little Missy now has a $69 {before shipping} outfit - not to shabby right?

 Maybe you can tell she was being a total stink?...

I really do hope if you have questions you'll ask, my brain is a little fried trying to explain it but it's fun and relatively easy :)

Linking up to all these fun parties

and these:

http://thediyshowoff.blogspot.com/

http://lambaround.blogspot.com/

http://www.creationsbykara.com/

http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com

http://projectqueen.org/

http://www.homestoriesatoz.com

http://firefliesandjellybeans.blogspot.com/

http://carolynshomework.blogspot.com/

http://linda-coastalcharm.blogspot.com/

http://nightowlcrafting.blogspot.com/

http://www.tipjunkie.com

http://www.bystephanielynn.com

http://makingtheworldcuter.com/

http://www.adiamondinthestuff.blogspot.com/

http://savvysouthernstyle.blogspot.com/

http://todayscreativeblog.net/

goodbyecityhellosuburbs.blogspot.com/

http://thefrugalgirls.com/

http://www.mommahenscoop.blogspot.com/

http://www.nominimalisthere.blogspot.com/

http://733blog.blogspot.com/

http://savedbylovecreations.com

http://frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com/

http://www.remodelaholic.com/

http://www.serenitynowblog.com/

http://tatertotsandjello.com

http://www.mineforthemaking.com/