One pattern, three looks

A recent competition on Sewing Mamas challenged the participants to use one pattern and come up with three different looks by making major changes to the design. I turned to one of my old favourites, Ottobre 03/2007 #16. After checking that making different sizes would be OK I set out to make one item for each girl.

Monkey was up first, she now has a lovely new summer dress made from Heather Ross' Mendocino fabrics. This one is made following the pattern as written with no changes, a square overskirt hangs down over an A-line underskirt and it is incredibly twirly.



These are two of my favourite fabrics, I don't know if I'll ever let her wear it outside, or while eating!



Toddler was up next. I left the bodice piece as it was and changed the skirt to a bubble. There are a lot of tutorials out there on how to make a bubble skirt so I won't bore you with the details! Here it is on Toddler, I'm glad I used a very lightweight cotton as there is a *lot* of fabric in that skirt.



Princess had already put in her fabric requests for new dresses so she got a top instead. This was the most difficult modification simply because I had to scale the pattern up two sizes for her. It's amazing how much they grow when you're not looking, she has shot up two inches over the last few months! Adding the two gathered tiers was very easy thanks to my ruffler foot which I am slowly getting to grips with. Mendocino fabrics again, Princess chose them from the pile.



There's a little seahorse charm inserted into the bodice seam, I bought it at Hobbycraft and it's just perfect with these prints.