The Father's Day dress

In the beginning of last winter I bought fabric to make curtains for Little Monkey's room. I thought I would quickly put them together and move on to more exciting projects, but no! I would start and stop working on them, looking for any excuse to make anything other than the curtains. A few weeks ago I got so frustrated with myself that I decided I would not make anything until I finished the curtains... so for a little while I made nothing. A couple of weeks ago I started missing sewing and finally finished the curtains. I am not sure if I am going to blog about them. If you want to see what they look like, there is a photo on my Facebook page.

Now the curtains were finished I could sew fun things again! My self-imposed curfew was over. Hooray! I thought there was no better way to reward myself than to make something for my daughter.

While she was sleeping, I made a new Louisa dress for Little Monkey.

I love this pattern. Last year I made a summer version of this dress. Little Monkey's new dress is perfect for spring. I finished it just in time for Father's Day! In Australia we celebrate Father's day on the first Sunday of September.

Because Little Monkey loves her daddy (and I am rather fond of him too), we took him for a trip to Melbourne to celebrate. We stayed in St Kilda, just a few minutes walk from the beach. The weather was perfect, so we enjoyed a walk along the beach and collected a lot of shells. Oh, and took a lot of photos of Little Monkey's new 'Father's Day' dress!

I opted for a plain back version this time. Sometimes less is more, right?

The main feature of this dress is the pocket, of course. Little Monkey was especially excited about this pocket as it is a similar shape to a pocket on her daddy's hoodie :) She is such a daddy's girl at the moment it is super adorable.

I usually buy inexpensive fabric to make clothes for my daughter (with her denim and Liberty Mara dress being an exception), but I could not resist this gorgeous Japanese cotton. I bought it from House of Cloth. It was on sale but still at around $20/metre mark. I figured that every now and then I can make her something extra special. She is worth it.

I did cheat a little and lined the pocket with cheap light blue quilting cotton. I only had enough for this pattern piece. The colour was so close to the blue on the main fabric, it was just meant to be! I really like this little sneaky detail.

Just like my first Louisa dress, this one only has facing around the neckline. Last time I topstitched the neckline to stop the facing from pocking out, however I was never 100% satisfied with how it looked. This time... Perfect neckline, and the facing will never show! How? Understitch. I read the term so many times in the past, but never understood what it meant until I tried one of the Oliver + S patterns. I am a converted understitcher now. I may have just made up a new word.

Another little detail that I unfortunately forgot to photograph is a zipper guard. An essential detail if the body of the dress is not lined. Well, in my books anyway :)

Little Monkey thought there was nothing more exciting than collecting shells on a beach, until we went to Luna Park where she had a blast going on rides with her wonderful daddy. She fell asleep in the car before we left St Kilda!