The Sweet Simple Dress-- as completed by my Pattern Testers.

When I designed The Sweet Simple Dress, I tried to make it with lots of options for customization and I encouraged my sweet pattern testers to get creative and to really make the dress their own.

Of course, they did not disappoint.  Every dress was done so excellently. 

In no particular order, here they are.

Up first, this darling dress by The Nest Creations , I love how her daughter picked out her own fabrics and styling.  What a cutie!

I love this darling blue and white stripped one from Stripes and Polka Dots. 

Ahh, matching sisters-- my favorite.  These two cuties are my nieces.  

I love the way their matching, darling dresses turned out!

Kerrie made two dresses for some cute little twins.  

I love the pocket designs she made.

 

I love this darling tunic from Made-by-Sara.  

She used knit for the bodice and cotton for the sleeves. 

Court from Court is Crafty made this darling green dress with cute little buttons on the sleeves.

Check out this cutie from Australia from the blog Sewn by Elizabeth.

Look at this darling little baby from Huckleberry Love.  She tested our size 6 - 12 m.  I love the bright colors.  Too cute.

  

I love this cute one with a darling ribbon in the front.

These dresses are too cute from Nap-Time Creations.  If you're asking yourself, "Hmm, why did she pick some of those interesting details."  You might be surprised.  You can read all about her inspiration here.

The sweet simple dress turned out very darling from Sewing for Sanity.  Look at that smile!

I love this darling heart dress with bird applicay from a LOT of ATTITUDE. 

And lastly, I just love this darling dress from Crissybell's Musings. 

Her daughter is too cute in it!

Hope you enjoyed my pattern tester round-up.  

You can pick up your own Sweet Simple Dress HERE or your FREE 0-3 m dress here.

The Sweet Simple Dress -- a FREE Pattern size 0-3 m

Hi, Friends!

Got a baby shower coming up, need something to sew up quick?!

  New to sewing, need a simple place to start?  

Afraid of buttons and zippers?

Well...without sounding too crazy and infomercially (-- that's a word, right?) 

 I've got just the thing for you.

I'm really excited to be presenting The Sweet Simple Dress-- a FREE pattern for newborns. Hooray!!

This sweet newborn dress is an exact pattern excerpt from the original The Sweet Simple Dress. 

It is the same basic pattern (without all the fun extras you'll find in the complete pattern).

This FREE Pattern includes:

+ 0-3 month size sweet simple dress pattern

+8 pages of  step-by-step directions with pictures to help guide you

+ 5 pages for the pattern, which you'll need to cut out and tape.

Click HERE to download The FREE Sweet Simple Dress.

This free pattern was made to allow you to try out this pattern in its most basic form as a freebie.  

All the fun ideas and patterns for customization are not included.

You can check out the complete pattern The Sweet Simple Dress for sizes 0 - 4t, pattern for ruffles, a gathered ruffled hem, simple pockets, and more at my Etsy Shop.

And don't forget to come back tomorrow where I'll be sharing the dresses my pattern testers made.

Please let me know if you've made these dresses, I love seeing them!

Sunny Day Shorts -- Free Pattern by Oliver + S

Have you heard, Oliver + S released another free pattern.

This one was absolutely timed perfectly and is something every seamstress will be using again and again-- The Sunny Day Shorts.  They are similar to the simple shorts tutorial I made last year, but mine are only in size 2t.  This pattern ranges from size 6 m to size 12.  Wow, that's a lot of sizes.

Back in March, I whipped these up lickety split during nap time one day, the day before we were leaving for Spring Break.  When my three year old woke up I asked her, "Do you know why I made you these?"

She innocently responded, "Because you love me."

"Wow", I thought, "I sure like your answer better.  I was thinking, 'Because we're going to the beach tomorrow'."

I love that in her mind, hand sewn clothes = loves. 

 I think that, too.

Even though I have my own Freshly Completed tags, sometimes I think it's fun to just add a simple folded over ribbon in the back. It reminds me of my mother, that's what she used to do when she sewed us clothes.

I love these shorts they're super simple, a perfect fit, and for sure I'll be making many more this summer.

Please join me Wednesday where I'll be sharing a Free Pattern + tutorial for my Sweet Simple Dress.

How to Add Cap Sleeves to a Spaghetti Strap Dress

I'm taking a little break from talking about The Sweet Simple Dress-- to talk about this quick tutorial.

A couple weeks ago I was approached on a Sunday and asked by a sweet 16 year old if I would add sleeves to her Prom Dress and have it done before that coming up Saturday.

Helping her in her desire to be modest-- How could I refuse?

I started with a quick google search on adding sleeves to a spaghetti strap dress and came up with nothing useful.  So I started from scratch. 

 I spent a couple days mulling over a couple different ideas before just diving in.

Luckily her dress came with this matching jacket, which I could cut up and use for fabric.  If you don't have matching fabric, I would recommend just hitting up your local fabric store and looking for the closest thing you can find. 

First I cut up the jacket and used these basic dimensions.  You want the part in the front of the dress to be less wide than the back.

As usual, I was totally winging it since I couldn't try it on her-- but it ended up being a perfect fit.

Fold in both sides of the straps 1/4" and 1/4" again towards the wrong side of the fabric.  Iron down then sew with a simple straight stitch.

Then use a gathering stitch and gather in both ends of the strap.  

Finish the edges using your preferred method, either a serger or a zig zag stitch.

Cut off the Spaghetti strap.  But use it as a guide of where to place your new straps.  I placed the strap a 1/2" to the right of where the original strap was, with the rest of the materials going past it to the left.

Right side of the strap should be facing wrong side of the dress, then hand stitch the straps in place. 

 I hand stitched it so you couldn't see my stitches from the front of the dress.

After I was done stitching all four parts of the straps onto the dress, I noticed that I hadn't sewn the stitches close enough to the front.  So I sewed them up a second time, this time keeping real close to the edge.

Below you can see the left, where I didn't stitch close enough, and the right, after I stitched it a second time.

VIOLA!

This was a really quick project and I was so happy she asked me for help.

Doesn't she look darling?

The Sweet Simple Dress-- On Sale NOW!!

Happy day!  The Sweet Simple Dress is for sale NOW! 

And just to be fun, I added the coupon SWEETSIMPLE that you can use to get 20% off.  

This coupon is good until the end of the month.

The dress has many darling ideas for customization, including adding a ruffly flower, or rows of ruffles on top.  ALSO:  this one's new, I added some simple pockets to the pattern.

The pattern also includes fun ideas for hemming the dress, including using gathered ruffles or a double needle.

This dress is really darling, I love it!

The pleated puffed sleeves are a really fun feature.

It made for some pretty adorable Easter kids this year.

For more please visit my Etsy shop HERE.

Be sure to come back next week where I'll be sharing my pattern tester's photos....and a free dress size.