Zephyr Dress

While my Banyan shorts are on hold (currently de-zippered) I decided to work on a Zephyr sun dress

It feels nice to have completed something without a lot of drama. Don't misunderstand - there was the required minimum amount of drama. But nothing crucial. For instance, it took quite a bit of puzzling and head scratching on my part to figure out how the straps were supposed to be attached to the back piece. My button loops also didn't come out exactly like I was expecting. Thankfully there wasn't quite as much standing and staring blankly at the instructions as I usually seem to do. Plus, this dress came out super cute. 

 I traced a hybrid 18month/2-3T size for Clover, because according to the size chart she is an 18 month old size everywhere but her height. So the dress is 2/3T length and the width of everything is 18 month. The straps are the 18 month length too. The fit is great around her body, with some wiggle room but not all floppy. At first I pulled it on over her head with the buttons undone and had a really hard time getting her arms through the straps without jerking her around and pulling really hard on the dress. The second time I had her step into it, and it was a much smaller struggle. Lol. Maybe on the third take she will glide into it with the grace and ease of a ballerina. 

 The only issue I'm having right now is that Clover's shoulders are really narrow, and it's hard to get anything to stay up on them very well. So I have a little piece of fabric tied around the straps in the back that keep the shoulder straps from slipping off of her. It makes the back yoke bubble out and look kind of weird, but I don't know that I can do anything about it at this point. The length of the straps is fixed, as is their position because they are sandwiched between the outside and the facing. Next time I will both make the straps a bit shorter and position them closer together in the back. 

Have I mentioned that she loves it? Yep. She loves it. 

Which is good, because the fabric was kind of a pain in the tushums to work with. It came from a wrap skirt of mine, which turns out to be rayon (huge pain!!!!). I stood and stared at my fabric pile for a while and couldn't come up with enough yardage or the right combination of anything. Once this skirt caught my eye, I immediately saw it as a flowy dress and decided to sacrifice it to the cause. The top is just some solid bone colored kona cotton that is left over from making the kids' quilts ages ago. I ordered waaaay too much bone. The buttons are from the stash I got on Mother's Day.

  

Clover thieved all the oranges off the kitchen island and threw them in a Trader Joe's bag. Nothing says "snuggle me" like a nice piece of citrus!