1950s Birthday Dress for 2 year old

Frank’s birthday and she’s presently obsessed with pink, so I’d been hoping to make her a pink dress. But I got struck by deep exhaustion and low mood leading up to the party, so I didn’t work on it at all. Then, day of, the exhaustion broke into an aura and a migraine, thankfully a short and mild one. The leadup was worse! So I made this dress during the two hours of nap, which meant cutting corners and going skipping seam finishes.

Pattern is from the vintage stash - Marian Martin 9217 in chest size 20 inches (I measured her last week to make a bikini top on the fly), which is perfect. Ironed pieces, cut them with rotary cutter on the large side (didn’t want to accidentally further damage the old pattern paper), and set aside. Set out the pattern instructions and zipped through them as well as I could.

I misinterpreted a step right at the beginning, that is, the neck opening facing, so it’s a big rectangle in how I managed to make it work, but it should be a little slit. Oh well! The biggest issue with my approach was that the rectangular edges didn’t turn as nicely as I’d have liked, so I had to clip into them to make it happen, which meant I had to satin stitch/bar tack over them to keep them secure at the end.

I tried to take advantage of this larger hole to create an easier opening, that is, I added a bit of pink elastic to the top hoping it could stretch over her head. It could not, so the next day I added snaps to one end instead, and a little button over the snap where my ugly speedy stitching was visible.

Pink and white dress on toddler holding a chunk of cheese in one hand

On the front scallops, which I’d never been done before, I couldn’t be bothered to learn how to do them nicely, so instead I zigzagged on some ribbon along the edge of the top piece, trimmed off any fabric that peeked out afterwards, and zig zagged THAT onto the other piece (after lining it up with the back bodice to make sure it would produce a smooth line). Seems good? I mean all the zig zagging is visible bc I just used white but I have no problem with that on a kid dress.

The skirt I accidentally cut only one piece of each front and back at first, and then messed up the angle on one when I cut it out a second time, so I stuck that pair of pieces at the back (tho they were front pieces) and opted to ignore match points and just make it happen.

For sleeves, I’d found the long sleeve piece first so that’s what they got. I didn’t want the same pouf the sleeve cap was drafted for, so I just distributed the easing almost all the way along. Still a bit of pouf, but not so much.

But when Fran tried it on, she had a hard time navigating the long sleeves, so the next day I chopped them, turned them, and added a bit of ribbon to match the front. Cuter!

Hem was done quick and DIRTY - i stitched 1/4 inch from bottom, then eyeballed the easing/ fold up as I went to sew it up. I haven’t tried pressing a crisp line on the hem so you can’t hardly tell.

In the end the thing is a little big, especially around the shoulders, so at least there will be room to grow into it (tho I made it true to size). And baby loves it because, of course, it’s pink and has a pocket!

child seated on adult chair wearing the Marian Martin dress, legs crossed, floral leggings and blue and white striped socks, eating a sandwich

Pattern: Marian Martin 9217
Size: 2/ chest 20 inches
Child Measured: 20 inches chest
Fabric: pink and white bedsheet of bra and shirt fame, plus some ribbon picked up from a thrift for mask ties, and a touch of thrifted pink cotton bias tape.
Next time: honestly it was just nice to make something so quick and dirty, although now that I understand how the slit was to work I wish I’d done that right! Won’t make that mistake again.