Sweet baby dress with a sophisticated color palette!

I've recently become friends with a lovely lady who works at my chiropractor's office and she requested that I sew a cute little dress for her 18 month old girl. It's been a long time since I've sewn a piece of clothing from a pattern (I usually just wing it like when I did Me-Made-May a few years ago), so I was delighted to do this because it worked as a great refresher for me. And with my new sewing machine it was so much easier than I thought it would be.

We went through free patterns online and found the absolute cutest ones I've ever seen, then we decided on the above fabrics from my stash. So playful in pattern but very sophisticated in color, which I think makes it even more fun. And here's the finished product:

I am soooo in love with this dress! The pattern I used was from Handmade Charlotte, and you can download the PDF for free here. It's called the Merrymaker dress and it's very well written. Her original version has patterns for sizes 4 and 6, as well as a solid skirt with stencils you can print to make a bunting pattern on the hem, plus lining for the skirt.

Since I had to make the dress to fit someone who will be about a size 2, I simply used the size 4 pattern and cut off all the seam allowances drawn with it. This reduces the pattern size significantly while keeping all the proportions. I followed all her instructions as normal after that, using a 5/8 inch seam allowance, and I think it came out just right! I also cut panels for the skirt instead of just a front and back, and used an overlock stitch to sew them together so there wouldn't be bulky seams in between, and skipped the lining to save time and make the skirt more flowy. And since the neck and collar facing were so small I overlocked them instead of hemming. Oh and I also sewed the collar with just a 1/4 inch seam allowance because it was thinner than I liked when I messed with the pattern.

I added the extra bias tape on the hem and made the sash to lighten the heavy colors and make it even more girly. I have more fabric combinations picked out and would love to sew some more of these little dresses for my shop!