Butterick 4910 - Christmas edition

I saw this adorable dress on Crafts 4 Lily and decided to take a little break from my current WIP to make Myra her own Gingerbread Dress.

I'd forgotten how bizarrely long the sleeves on this pattern are. Do you like how she has styled her dress with her leopard print flats? Ever the fashionista, is my girl. She never leaves the house without a bit of animal print on her person.

 The pattern I used is Butterick 4910, which is just your basic raglan sleeve tunic/top/dress. This is the long version, but shortened 5 inches to make it below knee length. I've used this pattern a couple of other times and I like it reasonably well, except for the weird sleeve length thing. Really, any raglan sleeve dress pattern you happen to have lying around would work for this dress. The fabric is a 21 wale corduroy that I purchased at Joann specifically for this project. I wanted a lighter, gingerbread brown. I think velour, velvet or velveteen would be equally cute.

For the trim, I stitched red rick rack to the sleeves (about 1 inch up from the hem) and at the seam between the skirt and ruffle. I found some cheerful green buttons in the stash and stitched three to the upper bodice with red thread and then tacked a bow at the left sleeve seam on the neckline. The arms are shirred with elastic thread.

Myra is pretty darn happy with her dress, and so am I. It is amazing what a little trim can do to spice (ha-ha) up an otherwise simple design. I need to do that more...