Making a dress w/ a three year old

My three year old has turned a corner and is now fully ready and eager to participate in sewing projects! No more trashing the sewing room and sticking all my pins in the floor!

She was an absolutely magnificent helper.

She picked the pattern from a handful in her size that I have (more on that later) and of course, pink fabric from my “use for whatever” part of my stash. We went down to Nefelibata to get her a ruffle for the pinafore, and she chose this excellent pleated one.

When I cut the pattern, she and her brother wrestled and drew on the fabric, but stayed away from my scissors.

At the sewing machine, she sat with me through every step. She drew on scraps with a chalk pen. She cut up scraps with embroidery scissors. She trimmed threads as I pulled pieces from the machine. She yelled “ready set GO!” to start the actual sewing. She lowered and raised the presser foot. She pressed the reverse button, occasionally specifically to mess me up but mostly to be helpful. She helped change out threads and got very excited about winding bobbins. She’d help turn the nob for different stitch selections.

At the ironing station, we chatted. Her job was to press the wood block on seams after I pressed them, and to toss aside the ones we were done with. It was a lot of fun.

And she wanted to work on her “beautiful dress” all the time. I explained everything we were doing and she had lots of questions.

It was a wonderful experience for me.

As to pattern fit, I am continually baffled that patterns for small children assume they have a “waist”. It’s not just vintage patterns like this one; modern size charts also list the chest as larger than the waist. It’s baffling to me. Toddlers have bellies. They are supposed to have bellies. Why in the world are patterns drafted like they don’t?

In any case, the one thing I did without my child present was unpick the front darts and re-press them. I’d also done something a bit silly at the back and tried to introduce more breathing room there by sewing hte zipper in with a smaller seam allowance, and I forgot all about this when I released the front darts to give her space where she actually needed it. We’d already sewn the skirt (the first thing we did) and I had no more fabric for more petals, so the net result is they are much less gathered than they were designed to be. The other result was the back was gaping wildly. My solution, rather than significant unpicking, was to add in two back shoulder pleats, which I’d say look almost intentional.

It took us about a week of sewing sessions. As it came off the machine, she said to me “Wonderful! Beautiful! My beautiful dress” and then we tried it on. It was magical. Also she was pretty much instantly on to the next one in terms of wanting to make more stuff.

Pattern: Butterick 2129
Size made: modified size 4
Measurements:
Next time: start with front darts released, make further adjustments AFTER that.