Weekend Project: Red Hot Mama

A blonde in a red dress can do without introductions -

but not without a body guard.

~ Rona Jaffe

So, I've been working on my 10-year-old niece's red dress - you know, the one that was inspired by her night club avatar on Facebook?

You may remember that she wanted an unusual hem - one that was shortest in front and longest in back. Here you can see the skirt folded in half (with side seams in the center and skirt front to the left) and her desired hem marked with white chalk:

And here you can see the first version of the dress. Note the single-shouldered style and the hemline:

(Check out the embedded link in the image above for a tutorial to make another red dress...)

So, while my niece has had an upward growth spurt over the last 6 months or so, she is still relatively curve-less. This means that it is going to take some work to get the dress to fit properly. But I am incredibly lucky with this pattern! Can you see why it's going to be relatively easy to adjust the fit?

It's because the fit is primarily dictated by the band, and the bodice & skirt pieces are both gathered into that band. That means that all I have to do is cut a new, longer band and let out the gathers a little bit in the other pieces, to adjust the dress to fit her! I don't have to cut out new bodice and skirt pieces! Isn't that great? :)

So, as predicted, there's going to be quite a bit of seam ripping going on in the near future, but I am feeling optimistic about being able to give her the dress that she wants. :)

I hope you are having a great weekend and feel ready for the start of a new week.