Simple toddler dress

I can't resist cute little Easter dresses for babies.  I had never made a dress before but I found some cute fabric, so I thought I would try it out.  I started out by tracing a pattern from a simple dress that my daughter already has, with a few modifications. There were just 8 peices-- the front top and bottom, back left top and bottom, back right top and bottom, and the sleeves.  The dress I copied from didn't have sleeves so I just made these ones up.  If you want to do a really easy dress, just leave the sleeves out altogether.

 Then I stitched the tops to the bottoms. Now that I think of it, I probably could have just cut them out as one peice.

 My next step was to stitch the shoulders together, then hem the neckline.  This was a little tricky since the neck was curved, so it helped to cut small (<1cm) slits along the neck before hemming.

 I then hemmed the sleeves along the straight edge and ran a ruffle stitch along the curved edge.  I centered them on the sleeve openings and stitched them to the dress, then hemmed the part of the sleeve openings that weren't covered by the sleeves.

 I added the zipper to the back of the dress by stitching it to the inside of the back opening.  I then sewed up the rest of the back.

 After hemming the skirt, this is what it looked like.  I was surprised at how quickly it all came together.  I planned on making a sash for it, but I got sick so that will have to wait.

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