A Dress for a Rebel Princess

My daughter had such a blast trying on her friend's dress that I knew I had to repeat the experience, ASAP. I know I sound like a broken record touting Sweet N Charmed fabric, but they really had my number earlier this year. Hilariously, I was actually going to skip this fabric until my daughter saw it, and SHE was the one who asked me to preorder it, back in July.

 

Also in the "Gee, where have I heard of THAT before" category is Simple Life Pattern Co; Originally I wanted to do a Paisley with this fabric (like the dress I made for my friend's kid), but the Rebel Princess in this panel was just too tall to make it work in my daughter's size. I had to go back to the Isla with the dropped waist option if I wanted to keep both the death star and the princess' feet, which I did.

The Isla also doesn't have a pattern for a contrasting neck band per se (it's intended to be lined), but someone in the facebook group was kind enough to share her method for making a neck band. It basically consisted of cutting a strip that was 1.75" wide by 85% of the total neckline length + Seam allowance, sewing it closed and then attaching it to the shirt as you would a regular neckband. Which I did, and I ended up very happy with the result.

So was my daughter! She's a size 5 on a good day and I made it a size 6 to give her room to grow. I am really happy with how the fabric placement worked out, and I forgot to take a picture but as with every dress I make for her, this too has pockets.

Little A has charmed me by treating this as a special occasion dress, wearing it to parties at daycare and declaring it her "Comic Con Dress" because the first time she wore it was, in fact, when I took the kids to Wizard World Comic Con earlier this year. As it happens (and yes, it was totally unplanned), all our best nerd outfits were handmade by me. A was especially excited to meet not just Rey, but also the inspiration for the fabric of her dress.

I'm not sure I quite met the initial goal of this project - I don't think it ended up with the same whirling, twirling, swingy-skirt factor as the Power Up Dress, probably because of the dropped waist - but that's the kind of problem that can always be solved with more sewing later. In the meantime, it's fun to see this dress be loved.