Yes, I did make a baby dress. No! Not a single person I know are expecting a little girl anytime soon.

So I put it on my cat.



Well… the real story is I saw the awesome free Criss Cross Baby Dress and Matching Bloomers freebie pattern over at one of my fav’s Melly Sews, and it was so cute and fast I HAD to make one…
Melly did a great tutorial, but we all have our favorite methods and tweaks we love to do, so I thought I’d share my little changes.

Since Pepper wasn’t exactly the happy model, we’ll now using Pooh and Boo.



On the dress I completely followed the directions, apart from the fasteners, it was hard to tell but I think Melly used snaps on her dress.



I wanted to make the dress fully reversible so made button holes on the straps, and then I hand sewed on back to back buttons, I wrapped floss around the thread to make enough of a ‘gap’ to be able to get the straps under the buttons.

Bloomers on Boo

Since I have a serger my technique on the bloomers was a little different.
I altered the pattern by changing it into a two piece rather than 1 since I was working with remnant. You can do the same by cutting the pattern in the middle and adding a small seam allowance.
Stitching it back into 1 big piece was my first step.
For the ruffles rather than making tubes like Melly, I rolled hem serged some strips, gathered them, then sewed them one before constructing the bloomer.
Then I serged the leg hole edges.
Then I serged the sides together
Then I serged the waist band edges.
Then rather than ‘double folding’ the casing I single folded it to make the casement for the elastic, since this isn’t sized I left my casing open so I can later adjust it.




This was a great quick project to add to my baby shower repertoire, I hope my methods along with Melly’s encourage you to stitch some up!

This post is partying here.