Little sister is busy catching rolly pollies. That tidbit loves bugs. |
I love the A-Line shape of this little dress, its just sweet. The fit is really good, I used a size 6 (for reference she is almost 7 years old and I can't be bothered to go in the other room and check her chest circumference) with size 7 length. Turned out a little long but that's better than too short. The button at the back neckline is a pink cat. The construction was simple and I think that this is the kind of dress I wish I could get her to wear more often- just so darn sweet.
Now for the Style Arc Kate dress. I have needed a basic, simple, knit wrap dress pattern in my pattern stash for a long time but I have completely avoided most of the knit patterns out there because the necklines all look crazy low cut.
So enter the Style Arc Kate wrap dress. It comes in three sizes when you order the PDF on Etsy and that sounded good to my ears but the only draw back is the sizes aren't nested so if you have to make size grading changes then you have to tape together a few sizes and lay them on top of each other, arggg. So needless to say I made a straight up size 8 when technically I should've used a size 10 in the hips. But it worked fine and I love the result! The neckline does not plunge and everything stayed in place with the skirt today when I wore it to work.
As far as construction, I made the ties longer so I could tie them in the front. I used a zig zag stitch (just in case I had to pick out stitches) for the entire construction and stabilized the neckline with 3/8 inch clear elastic. I stabilized the hemline on the skirt and front hems with fusible tricot cut into strips. The neckline stays in place really nicely and I don't have to pin it together with a safety pin like I do with my store bought wrap dress. I read a lot of reviews of this pattern on Pattern Review and they all said the pattern was really long so I took about 3 inches off the bottom before I cut out the dress. I am 5'5" and the length was just right, in fact I probably could've taken only 2 1/2 inches off and that would've been a little better.