The Sweet Pea Dress Tutorial; part 1

                                          
 Some days it feels like there isn't enough hours in a day. I am a day later than I wanted to be posting this but things always come up. My oldest son had to come home early from school so I wasn't able to get much done then. He is much better this morning and back at school today. :) So on to the tutorial! For some reason when I started this dress I didn't take as many photos as usual so if there is any questions just let me know!

Supplies needed:

about 2 yards of eye lit fabric, I had extra

white fabric for lining

a pink satin bow, I bought mine on sale but you can make your own

 a 7-9" zipper

white thread

I used a pattern I has already made up at the house. I made it By taking one of My daughter's shirts and tracing around it. When you trace around it be sure to add your seam allowance in! The dress was sewn with a 3/8" seam allowance so add 3/8" to the tracing. 
I didn't take a picture of the front tracing, sorry. Here is how I made the one for this dress. I took the back peice and retraced it on tissue paper then I made the front neck line come down just like it does on the front of her shirt.

I then made the neck line at the front more like a box shape. ( trace only the center of the front bodice out to the side arm hole out. When you cut out your pattern the center will be placed on the fold of the fabric so that both sides of the front bodice are the same)

Here is a picture of the cut out peices, Cut out 2 back peices out of the eye lit fabric and 2 peices of the lining fabric for the bcak of the bodice.

Cut out 2 peices of the front bodice of the eye lit fabric.

Next we need to cut out the center panel for the pleats. I cut mine 4"x18". This is much wider and longer than I need, don't worry it can be cut smaller when it is sewn to the front of the bodice.

Now to cut the 2 front bodice peices so we can add the center pleats to it. First decide how wide you want your center pleats to be. Now measure it out, adding the seam allowance to the left and right side of the bodice and not to the center part being cut out. The center that is being cut out will be trown away!

Now on to the sleeves, (sorry again, not enough pictures but I will explain as best I can) I traced a sleeve on one of my daughter's dresses that she has. (I was going to make it long sleeve than decided to make it short sleeve so I just folded the bottom of the sleeve up to the cut lenght of 2"). To add more fabric to make a gathered sleeve cut the sleeve tracing in half and pull the top of it out, as shown in picture, pinning in place. Be sure to have the bottom of the eye lit fabric at the bottom of the sleeve, there will be no hemming of the sleeve. cut out 2.

Last we are going tro cut out the skirt peices, once again sorry for the lack of pictures, but it is all retangle pieces, easy peasy!

First figure out how long you want the skirt to be by measuring you little girl. Add a 3/8" seam allowance to this measurement for the top of the skirt, this is your lenght cut out measurement. For the width double the front bodice (total measurement including center pleat). Repeat for the back baodice.

Cut out 1 of eyelit fabric for the front skirt and one lining for the front skirt.

Cut out 2 eye lit fabric for the skirt back and 2 lining for the skirt back.

Be sure not to add any seam allowance to the bottom of the skirt, it is cut out on the scalloped edge of the eye lit so no hemming needed. The lining fabric needs to be the same lenght as the eye lit, when the lining is hemmed it won't be seen form the outside of the dress.

We are done for this day!