Okay, guys, here it is. This, the Sweet Lilly Pintuck Dress & Tunic is possibly my favorite thing I made my little gal. I know I’ve thought that before, but it’s just so pretty, and I’m so thrilled with how it turned out. I made the Coffee Shop Lace Dress last week, and I felt that it was a great pattern that would translate well into a Christmas dress with some red velveteen I have…somewhere…in my fabric stash. When I had the opportunity to test this new dress from Bella Sunshine Designs (affiliate link), I was really excited. I had some red cotton with white flowers printed on it that I found…you guessed it…at a thrift store, and I thought it would be the perfect fabric for this dress. I also had some white fabric sitting around that I figured would work nicely for the ruffles and lining.
This dress took a while to make, I won’t lie. I wanted it to be perfect. I took about 15 hours to make the Sweet Lilly Pintuck Dress & Tunic from start to finish; that time included the time spent hand-sewing the lining to the bodice and hand top-stitching the upper part of the arm bands (because I made the 6 month wide, 18 month long dress, I figured the arm bands would look much nicer if I did them by hand and not attempt to force my sewing machine to accurately top stitch in such a small space. I also had to take out my pintucks on each side once because I didn’t initially allow enough seam allowance in a few of them.
Even though the bodice of the dress is a bit “fussy,” it’s a great pattern for intermediate sewers for fall. Melissa Prendergast, as usual, does a great job with instructions and describing steps, so even though there are a lot of techniques used (understitching, pintucks, edgestitching, full-bodice lining, etc.), the techniques involved are well-described. The ruffling technique went well, and although I seam ripped the places where the bodice meets the ruffle on top a few times, I was able to get everything lined up to perfection. While I wasn’t 100% happy with my buttonholes on the back, I am still in love with this dress. It’s hanging on the wall in my living room where I look at it every day. I made a matching headband, which I’ll write about later in another post.
For now, I’m super-excited about this dress. I have some owl fabric hanging out that I think I’ll use to make the longer version of this dress. I may also hunt down some of my brown floral fabric to make a fall/Thanksgiving version.
Through Labor Day weekend, the Sweet Lilly Pintuck Dress & Tunic pattern is available for $5.97 at 40% off; in fact, all of the patterns at Bella Sunshine Designs are on sale through the weekend at 40% off.
Here are more pictures! Please share pictures of your favorite recent creations in the comments!
So pretty! Great job! I love the details you gave in the review, like how long it took to make, and what experience level it is.
Thank you! It’s still totally one of my favorite dresses for my gal! 🙂