Sleeping Beauty II

Last September, I idly added a Sleeping Beauty panel to a buy-sell-trade deal. The seller wasn't asking too much, and it was "flawed" but still useable, so it made sense to combine for a 2-panel deal. When the panel arrived, 2 things happened 1) my daughter fell in INSTANT love and 2) I laid it out next to several different pattern ideas I had, and realized the cut-off bottom was going to take a little bit of work to overcome.

With Christmas coming, I set the panel aside for a bit. But then in January, when I made my daughter her much-anticipated Sleeping Beauty Dress out of the fabric we found at the Quilt Store using the VFT Ginger Pattern, her first response was "...where's the panel?" I took that as a hint that MAYBE I needed to dig this thing back out & make something with it.

My first instinct was to try the off-the shoulder look of the Striped Swallow Desert Breeze, but then my daughter would have have two Aurora Dresses that were both off the shoulder and both best worn only in summer. I also considered the SLPCo Adelyn (I'm still dying to make one) but ironically, the neckline was too deep to make a bodice out of without cutting off the top of Aurora's head. But then I noticed one of my favorite Custom Clothing makers, Chelsea over at Sew Stylin' Stitches, was going through a "puffed sleeve princess dress" phase at the time (link to order!). On a lark, I sketched out this colorblocked creation, and it was instant love from my daughter.

To create this look in practice, I used the Sew By Pattern Pieces Fun Tee, and added my own double skirt. I didn't have high hopes for the SBPP pattern, because their Etsy store is small and on first blush it looked like most of their offerings are pretty nondescript. But let me tell you, I was *thrilled* with the actual content this pattern. Despite being "just a tee shirt," the Girls' Fun Tee came with an A0 cutting guide, 36 pages of instructions (including line art drawings and links to helpful videos) and tons of tester photos. Heck, I even learned some things about reinforcing my shoulders and using my serger from this pattern!

Gathered sleeves always take forever to make, and in this case I was also slowed up by the fact that I ran out of my Purple Seamstress Fuschia Partway through. Purple Seamstress usually has amazingly fast shipping, but the post office decided to celebrate MLK day by holding my package for an extra 3 days over the weekend. Also, Purple Seamstress' C/L is inexpensive but it isn't the most color-consistent from lot to lot, so it will forever annoy me how the fuchsia skirt doesn't *quite* match with the fuchsia top. Sigh.

But the good news is, my daughter loves this dress!

It twirls like a dream, it's got her favorite princess on it, it's got hidden pockets under skirt #1 (which I'd originally planned on making shorter until I saw it in person) and it's super comfy since it's all Cotton Lycra.

My daughter says it is her "absolute favorite" dress, and out of her whole closet, this is the one she picked to accept an award at her school a few days after it was completed. I had to do a special load of laundry just for the occasion.

But it was worth it, to see that smiling face so well dressed!