Sally Dress

One of the sweetest, most creative people in the whole world sent me a copy of her new pattern and asked me to sew up a version of it. Shannon, who writes the luvinthemommyhood blog, is one of the very first people I discovered in the blog world a few years back. Her warmth draws people in. She's become a friend who I admire a great deal. 

The Sally dress is her latest addition to the Very Shannon shop. A vintage inspired square neck dress with jumbo pockets to carry childhood necesseties (Clover's are full of holly berries and feathers right now). It's got a fully lined bodice and no closures, though as you'll see I added one on mine. You've got room for customization. And there are three sleeve options - sleeveless, short, and three quarter.

Clover was feeling nerdy in her plaid this morning. There's a nerd girl Lego minifig (actually I think she's a librarian) we've got that she was pretending to be. Later she was Dorothy with a basket and stuffed dog. Lol. Love her brain.  She also mentioned something about wearing it to the farm museum to milk a cow in.

Violet wouldn't be left out of the photo action, but you probably can't see her in her ninja outfit. I'm ready for a major sewing intervention.... A new long sleeved black shirt must be made to replace that saggy old 18 month sized thing she insists on wearing EVERY DAY.

Clover's dress has a 3T bodice and 4T skirt that I lengthened an extra inch out of paranoia over her supermodel legs. (last night my kids were digging in their dad's shirt for a tag to see what "T" he wears. hahaha) She's 4 and always measures small in width for patterns. I could have even gone with a 2T and been fine.

I added a small loop closure because I wasn't certain how much effort would have to go into donning a closure-free dress, and Clover has some issues with clothes. Any struggle could mean this dress being handed down to.....well, nobody because Violet won't wear them.  No complaint from her when we put this on though, so mission accomplished.

She also reeeally dislikes when anything slips off her narrow little shoulders, and while the square neck has slipped off to one side several times today, she hasn't actually been bothered. I adore the square neck, so I'm glad it wasn't a deal breaker. There's a boat neck shirt of hers that's never seen the light of day.
 

When I finished my dress up last night, and was staring at it in the dim kitchen light, the flannel and blank front of the bodice started to look a little....homeschool to me. Like more "homeschool jumper" than "preppy plaid". Had this been a crisp plaid shirting and not flannel, it never would have seemed that way to me I think. I don't mean to insult anyone who loves that homeschool jumper style, it's just that the Lord of the Rings costumes in the middle of the day in public is more my homeschooled kid style. Lol.

So to prep things up a bit I added a little faux placket and some adorable vintage red buttons to the front. Clover thinks the buttons are awesome, so win for me.

Black beauty observes Lego construction techniques.

Unfortunately, it was hard to photograph well while the dress was being worn, but I pleated the outer layer of both pockets for some added visual interest instead of doing a contrast pocket. I just cut an extra wide piece for the pocket and regular sized piece for the lining, and sewed pintucks until the outer pocket matched the size of the lining. Then the pintucks ended up getting pressed all in one direction and sewn down in my seam allowances.

"Etymology is one of my favorite topics too! What are the odds!" 

Believe it or not, they love carrying the dictionaries around with them. Mostly to pretend they're library books. Apparently the bazillion real library books laying on various parts of the living room floor aren't exciting enough.

The little librarian wore her dress all day and produced some impressive, if ill timed, twirls in the middle of a busy aisle at the grocery store. Guess I get an A for this dress?

Shannon is great with instructions, and can make a great diagram to go with them. You may have to keep referencing your pattern to get it all assembled correctly the first time, but she does a good job of explaining the process in detail. There's also only one pattern piece to print for the sleeveless version. Woo hoo! Your printer and tape dispenser will live to assemble another PDF pattern. 

You can find the Sally dress at the Very Shannon shop

There are lots of other versions of the dress coming up so check out what a bunch of much more famous ladies than me are whipping up on luvinthemommyhood

Thank you Shannon for letting me join in your fun! We think this dress is adorable.

We'll just be here trying to figure out how to start making clothes with Legos.