I have two birthday traditions for my daughter. I make her a birthday dress and take a picture of her with her bedhead and a balloon the morning of. You can see my previous birthday dresses here.
As she gets older, she has gotten to provide more input on her dress. This year, I started a subscription to Threads Magazine and with each issue, both Lilli and I pour over each page during breakfast, the week it arrives in the mail. She had seen this issue (#202 May 2019) and said she wanted the pink dress on the cover.
Not to get her hopes up, I said I’d try, but might not be able to get the same fabric. So, off I went to look for African wax print that looked like the one on the cover. After some time with no luck, I decided to ask the owner of this dress, Marcy Harriell from Oona Balloona. She happily told me that she had gotten it 2 years back from Mood Fabrics. And because it had been a long time since she had bought it, she even gave search words to Google “Lilac Rose Waxed Cotton African Print with Gold Foil” to be exact.
The product was out of stock; disappointed but hopeful, I made a call to Mood. After all, this was in April so I had some time until June. Unfortunately, there was no plans to bring it back in stock. Que sad violins! 🎻
In the end, I found it on Fabric.com and quickly purchased it, in case they became out of stock too. 👀 It is still available in case you fancy some African Wax print yourself. When it arrived, I noticed it didn’t look quite the same. The gold foil was EVERYWHERE and very distracting. But… I put it through the pre-wash and decided to worry about it another day. The back side (without the foil) was still nice, so that is what I ended up using.
L is so happy with her new dress!
Pattern Planning – Bodice
I can’t remember whose dress I saw on Instagram, but it had the exact bodice I wanted. Following the hashtags, I found out that it was from Tadah Patterns, the Amor Dress. But not without modifications.
Modifications:
- Splice front piece of the classic view into two, making a princess seam
- Used the front pieces for the back as well
- Change closure to invisible zipper
- Add piping to straps, princess seams, and waist. While the piping doesn’t exactly pop out like this one, it does add something extra to an already extra dress.
- Piping was made using bracelet thread and pre-made black bias tape.
Pattern Planning – Skirt
Pattern wise, from Marcy’s post, I knew she used a skirt pattern with godets to work with the fabric’s print. I didn’t have any such pattern so I took my tried-and-true skirt pattern (Lorelei Dress by EBeth Designs) and cut chunks out of it. Then I took the godet pieces and did a slash and spread to add more fabric and let’s be honest, up the twirl factor.
Initially, I was afraid it wouldn’t work. But, I remembered what winmichele once said, if you are trying out something new, try it half scale first. It worked out just like I’d hoped!
Once I was happy with the spreading of the pattern, I added seam allowances to both the godets and main skirt and called it a day.
The entire dress is lined, so it looks beautiful inside and out.
But the most difficult part was the pattern placement. I had to cut the front bodice and main skirt twice, since I didn’t pay attention to the print. Luckily, I had 6 yards of fabric to work with and tracing paper to see through.
Side note: give yourself a day for the dress to relax because the hem looked very wonky after just one night.
Overall, I am happy with how this dress turned out. Best of all, L loooves it too. My only complaint is getting her into the car seat! So. Much. Fabric! 🤣
Have you worked with African wax print? What were your experiences with it?
