Long Princess Sundress

My new three year old has been looking for long dresses to wear and most of hers are too short. I remembered that it's often at this time of year that JoAnn's carries shirred top fabric for simple sundresses. I went to their website and not only do have many choices, some of them have princesses, Minnie Mouse, or Hello Kitty on them.

We went to Joann's and found many great options! She chose the blue with Ariel, but it wasn't quite as long as she hoped. We found a great sparkly purple to match the purple flowers. The plan was to make a ruffle at the bottom and also use it for matching straps.

It all seemed to go together well, though took a bit longer than I anticipated. Sewing with a mini helper sometimes goes that way.

This fabric panel was serged on the top and bottom edges. The bottom doesn't show because it is in the ruffle seam. The ruffle was cut at 3.5" and hemmed at the bottom. At the last minute, I decided to turn under and top stitch the top edge, but it would have been be fine as it was. The straps were also 3.5" wide, folded in half and stitched right sides together and then turned. Then I made a casing on one side for 1/4" elastic to form a kind of ruffle to compliment the bottom.

My daughter helped by trying on the dress many times for the right back seam and also for strap placement. I used safety pins for the straps as to not poke her.