Child Fable Dress

 

I made this toddler Fable Dress from Twig and Tale as part of the April Storyteller theme of "Embellish". I wanted to explore the ideas of functional embellishments - decorative designs in garments that also serve a practical purpose. 

I was delighted to be given the opportunity to write a piece for their blog, where I got to explore this topic and outlined my process of making this dress. The idea came about after I stumbled across an inspirational book at the library: “The art of manipulating fabric” by Collette Wolff.  True to its title, it offered a remarkable array of methods to dart/pleat/tuck or otherwise manipulate fabric. I had already been toying with the idea of making a fables dress for my daughter incorporating growth tucks, and the tucks chapter gave me the inspiration to elevate them a step further!

I incorporated a set of bow tucks into the sleeve of the dress, and some undulating tucks along the skirt. These I hope to let out in the future as she grows. The bodice buttons are also framed by two sets of pintucks. I chose to line the bodice (the pattern has the option of both lining and facing) and added a pleat in the bodice at the same region as the pintucks just in case I want to let that out in the future too. 

The fabric was a cotton remnant I've had in my stash forever. It was 110cm in width and I only ended up using 0.9m of this. 

The undulating skirt tucks reminded me of waves in the ocean so I added some sea-themed embroidery. The design is the "Undersea Garden" pattern also from Twig and Tale. I'm very happy with how they turned out given that this is only ever the second embroidery design I've attempted (the first being their woodland alphabet pattern). 

I was very pleased at the end outcome of my dress. My daughter has already taken it out for a spin in the garden and to the local playground. Ducks were fed, slides were slid, and she looked as cute as a button throughout! Am hopeful the tucks I've placed will help to stretch the lifespan of this garment just that little bit further as to not waste all my embroidery efforts! 

For details of my tuck alterations would invite you to the Twig and Tale blog article where I outlined my process. 

Note both the dress and embroidery pattern were gifted as part of the Storyteller project.