And... Done!

OK, so I'm feeling a bit better after my long to-do list this morning.  Today I did actually get some work done around the house plus I got around to making 2 dresses!  Yup.. TWO of them!  I even got a few more rows knit on my sweater as well :)

My sister came by after stopping and picking up some fabric at JoAnn.  I took a few measurements and got started with her new dress(es).   A few days ago, my sister, Whitney (of Caught You on Camera), sent me a link to the McIntosh Knockoff Dress at Maybe Matilda... and asked me to make her one.  It's a super cute dress and honestly, really very similar to my Kate Dress that I have made for my daughters.  Same basic concept, except the McIntosh Knockoff features this really fun sash and the best part... pockets!

I was really excited to make a dress with pockets in it... I've never done it until today, and I must say I'm hooked!  I'll probably never (or rarely) ever make a skirt again without pockets.  Shoot, I might even go take a look in my closet and start figuring out which dresses and skirts I could add some pockets to.  hehe  I better slow down though for now. :)

Anyway, the tutorial was super easy to follow and really simple to do.  To be perfectly honest, if you can cut a square/rectangle and sew a straight line, then you can make this dress.    Here's how mine turned out...

This was the first one I made...

I followed the directions exactly - the measurements given in the tutorial were exactly the same as my sister's measurements - how lucky is that!? :) We measured to have the waist of the skirt fall right below her belly button.

On the second one, we made the skirt about an inch above the belly button.

This one I did a little more A-line. I didn't have a skirt to trace, so I just cut my squares a little wider then folded in half length-wise and cut a diagonal line from the top to the bottom, making sure that I left the width of the waist large enough so that I could gather the skirt still. I just did a straight hem on this skirt and it worked just fine.

The only problem we had was with the sash.  I didn't cut it long enough the first time around, so I ended up going back and having to cut it and add more.  The extra fabric is still here so I think I'm going to re-do the sash to make it look better.

Oh yeah, and the sash... this was the fun part of how it turned out for me - I had the idea that since the fabrics that Whit brought over coordinated, that we could make the sash double sided.  This way I only had to make one sash and also both prints would show when it was tied, adding a little bit more fun to the outfit. :)

These dresses would be really cute with various belts really... just to mix up the outfit a bit...

I'm going to make myself one soon hopefully!!