Sometimes timing just works out perfectly. My daughter was invited to be the flower girl in my husband’s cousin’s wedding early next month (she has been a flower girl a couple times before and SHE LOVES IT), and the bride asked me to make her flower girl dress (which I LOVE).
Lucky for me, the upcoming Britex sale category of poly/rayon/lace and my ongoing status as a guest blogger for them meant I had plenty of wonderful fabric options to choose from to make her the perfect summer wedding flower girl dress.
I decided on this gorgeous Floral Net Mauve Cotton Blend Stretch Lace – it’s a cotton/nylon blend mesh with embroidered flowers. The bride’s colors include purple as an accent, and her dress is white lace and somewhat fitted, so I thought a simple shift dress would work nicely for Em.
I used the Oliver + S Roller Skate Dress pattern to make this dress – I made a size 5 with 2” added to the length and it worked great. Should probably size up to a 6 for the next one though!
To close the dress, I used a little piece of lace hem tape that my grandma left me, and the button is actually the same as what I used for Sadie’s orange unicorn roller skate dress!
The roller skate dress is one of my go-to patterns – I’ve sewn it quite a few times in the past, but typically as a more casual play dress. The pattern calls for a channel sewn at the empire waist and elastic inserted to give it shape. For this dress, I skipped that step and tied a silk sash around her waist instead, for a more formal look.
To allow the flower pattern on the lace to really show, I chose a deep purple cotton lining.
I trimmed the lining an extra 1/2” over what the pattern called for and did not hem the lace, giving the hem a delicate look. The effect is beautiful, I think.
I love that the dress looks fancy enough for a summertime wedding, but is also soft and comfortable for my daughter! Wearability is always the trick with fancy dresses for kids. That and washability, of course.
As far as tips for sewing with this sort of mesh/lace, I just used a finer needle, lots of pins, and was careful about matching thread/serger color. I cut the dress out using pattern weights and a rotary cutter. The mesh is actually more opaque than I expected and wasn’t difficult to sew!
Frankly, as a chronic procrastinator (I finished a prior flower girl dress around 3:30am the morning of the wedding) I’m pretty proud of getting this dress done WEEKS in advance. Now I can rest easy…or wait, maybe I should sew fancy clothes for the boys…or a dress for myself?
I’m sure I’ll find something to keep me up sewing. I always do.
All the fun and gorgeous poly/rayon/lace goes on sale at Britex 6/29! Look at the pretty lace, ooooooo ahhhhhh.
*DISCLOSURE TIME: Britex Fabrics provided the fabric for this project in exchange for a blog post. Thanks, Britex! Also, we totally trespassed in my inlaws’ neighbors’ backyard to take these photos while they were out of town; thanks S & W!!! It’s magical back there. Great neighbors are worth their weight in gold.
skirt as top 
Definitely the perfect mix of wearability for a kid and fanciness for a wedding. I LOVE the two tone purple!
I guess the danger of finishing early was bound to be more projects. I vote a new dress for yourself! 🙂
Oooh how pretty! I love the combination of the lace and lining fabric. Having the darker underlay really gives an amazing depth to the fabric.
Beautiful dress and clever pattern use!
Oh I love it!! Such a perfect flower girl dress without being too crazy fancy. This is a dress I would have loved as a little girl being an avid purple lover since birth :).
Wow, Kristin, this is just beautiful and the photos are truly magical! I made a peplum top with lace overlay and am sad to report the lace did not hold up well.
I recently had to throw the top away after it got a rather large hole in the lace. I was sad, too, because Tia loved it. So proceed with caution in terms of washing – unless it had to do with the quality of my lace. Not sure. I was not careful with mine and washed and dried it with everything else.
I love how the sash changes the look and dresses it up, I almost didn’t recognize it as a Roller Skate! The dark purple underneath is perfect, it really does bring out the pattern on the lace beautifully. Those braids are so cute, too!
Beautiful! Do the seam allowances show through the lace? Or did you treat the lining more like an underlining.
The Roller Skate was the perfect simple silhouette for that fabric.
Does she need a clutch with a little accent of matching lace? Can’t have you sitting back doing nothing…. 🙂
What lovely photos of your beautiful little girl in her very special lace dress! That garden was the perfect backdrop. I, too, would not have recognized this dress at the Roller Skate pattern. I like how different the pattern looks with different applications.