Junebug - A party dress with poppers

This is my take on the fabulous little girl's dress by Craftiness is Not Optional called the Junebug dress. It's a lovely, classic party dress with short puffy sleeves and a high gathered waist, and it fastens only at the front with buttons or poppers.

The pattern is really easy to work with, it includes a seam allowance so it's super easy to cut out - there's no extra measuring to do so it saves a lot of time. The pattern comes in lots of sizes, and there's a fantastic tutorial with options to make a shorter length tunic version for wearing over leggings, or a sleeveless version.

In this make I have used two fabrics from Ikea, a heavy printed beige cotton called PS 2014 (£6/m) and another offcut of the polka dot Rosali fabric. I had a small piece of the PS fabric which I picked up because I loved the colours. The beige fabric isn't really for dressmaking, it's more of an upholstery fabric, so I dont' think it's going to be that comfortable to wear, but it did make the sleeves puff up with a lot of shape.

The dark blue cross on the skirt was supposed to match up with the one on the flap and it didn't quite, which was a bit of a bummer, and I think if I did this again I would sew the front of the skirt upside down so that the blue cross is at the bottom of the skirt (I didn't have enough of the fabric to cut it differently).

I also didn't quite manage to match up the shoulders on the front with the curve of the back, but I got into a bit of a muddle with the lining and main dress fabric and sewed them back to front, and when I'd unpicked it, sewn it again and realised it didn't match up properly, well I just couldn't be bothered to sew it again.

I fastened the front with my trusty Kam snaps - I'm really into them at the moment, mainly because E has been playing with my button stash and I don't have enough of one type to use! I also think they're kinda retro, and I haven't quite figured out the one-step button-hole on my new machine.

I think the elastic on the sleeves is really cute too, it gives a great shape to them, and it's totally girly and sweet.

Next time I'm definitely going to sew this in a softer fabric, so it's a bit more comfortable to wear, and use buttons on the front.

No pictures of this one being worn yet, as she cried when I put it on her :(

Happy sewing,

Verity x