Pleated Dress

I love looking at blogs.  It inspires me to make or do something that that blogger has created themselves.  My pinterest boards {and before that my bookmarked folder} are quickly filling up with ideas that I myself want to try.

My Sister is getting married in less than two months, and we decided that it would be a little more cost efficient to make Five little girls dresses {five nieces all together}.  So we headed to Joanns and flipped through the various pattern books to find cute, but easy {because I am only a novice sewer} dresses to make.

We settled on a See & Sew pattern from Butterick {the one pictured on the right}

We thought it would look cute with the colors that she had picked out-black & pink.  I headed home and started cutting out the pattern, and then following the instructions on what fabric to cut.  As I started getting into the making of the dress, the simplicity of the pattern gave way to confusion.  And that confusion plagued me for awhile.  My SIL {who is a fantastic seamstress} was even confused by the patterns instructions.  In the end, I decided that this was not the dress to be made and even if I had figured out what to do, the time I had spent would be too much to again four more times.

So I thought about what I could do.  I began picturing a cute little skirt with tulle with a zebra ribbon accent somewhere.  I went to work.  I decided to create a skirt and sew it onto a t-shirt I had found at the store.

This is what I came up with {excuse the crying fit-she was having a hard day}.

Cute...yes.  But when I thought about it, it was a little labor intensive with all the gathering that I did, so I hung this dress up, and went back to the drawing board.

Now back to the beginning with the blog statement.  I've only been following/reading creative blogs for the last year and a half.  One of the first things that I remember seeing that I wanted to try was Ashley's {from Make It and Love It} Re-Purposed Shirt into a Dress.  I went back through the tutorial and told myself, "Why not".  I went to the store to pick up the supplies that I needed and 3 hrs later, I came out with this beauty:

I am so happy with the end result.  Ashley's tutorial was so easy to follow {thanks to her pictures & instructions} that I don't mind making more dresses like these.

So if you're looking to make a new dress  for your little girl {or even yourself}, you should totally give this one a try.

LINKING TO_
http://ourcountryroad.blogspot.com/