Strawberry Dresses

I read on one of my feeds that Pam over at Threading My Way had made the Good Deed Dress.  I liked the style, so I thought I would try the pattern out too. The 'Good Deed Dress' pattern can be found here.

The dresses are finished but not hemmed.
The dresses were a really tight fit to get on,
so I had a wee problem to solve..

After a problem free sewing time (don't you love those). I couldn't believe it... the dresses were rather hard to get on the girls. Pushing and pulling them about like dolls was not going to be any good for any future wear. I could see that I would need to alter them otherwise they would not want to wear them.

Obviously I made the wrong size and lining the top part of the dress would not have helped (it made it smaller). I'm not one for using a tape measure too much, I like to guess....Though I must admit it is hard to sew for someone else when they are not here for the fittings...and I usually rely on fittings as my measurements.

The problem:
The smaller dress when fitted was too tight over the head.
The larger dress fitted over the head, but was a bit tight when fitting the arms through the armholes.

Fixing the problem:
It took a bit of thought because I wanted the same alteration for both dresses. I thought about opening up the back. But I decided against that idea as the dress would be smaller still with a back seam. I decided to open up the side seam instead.

My intention was to sew a zip into the side seam opening. This was not a good idea as the side seams were too small, so I  had to made a false seam for the turn over. When I sewed the seam with the zip in it, it looked awful...It looked so tacky I had to unrip it all out.

The problem was finally solved by keeping the side seam partly open, making some buttonhole loops, and then attaching a facing to neaten off the opening. Next I then sewed two heart shaped buttons on the opposite side to the button hole loops. I also sewed on some Ric-Rac to the waist seam for decoration.

Would I make the dress again?
Yes I would and I'd use my tape measure instead of guessing :) I think I need to go to a 'how to use your tape measure tutorial'. I'm just joking...

Alteration: buttons and buttonhole loops
Fabric: Cotton Seersucker

The finished strawberry dress for eating
strawberries in!