I don’t think this dress could be any more twirly.  The bottom 2 layers has about 30 feet of fabric each.  Seriously.  This dress was mostly my own design.  I used a pattern piece as the base for the top, but then adjusted it for what I wanted.  I had to expand the back so it would have room for the shirring.  I like the dresses I make to be fitted but still comfortable and allowing movement.

The embellishments on the top…I love.  I sewed a pink organza ribbon on each side and then threaded pink rickrack through the channel.  I used snaps down the front (pink and purple!) at 1.5″ spacing.  The top is fully lined on the front and the back neck facing and arms, I just used bias tape from from the fabric. 

I’ll probably make a few more for summer…just not so twirly.  That was ALOT of ruffling.  Since this was the first time making this design, it took me around 6 hours or so to make it.  The only changes I wanted to make is to bring the front neckline down and have a bit more room in the armholes.  The arms just seemed a little too tight.

She was very happy with her new twirly Care Bears dress. 🙂

 I also have the tankini tutorial completed, too.  Here it is.  As always, you can find all of my tutorials on the “I Make Things” page here.  This is the suit I made while taking photographs.  I also made another one out of the same material in this picture that I may put up in my etsy shop.  I don’t think she needs more than two new suits, right??  Sorry, she claimed it before swimming last night and she was all emotional after just falling so I couldn’t say no, right??”  I’m thinking of making a few and putting them up in my etsy shop, so let me know if you are interested in a 3T-5T (she’s 3.5 and fits in 4T – these should fit that range no problem) suit.  I’ll send out an e-mail when I get them up.  Which will be hopefully sometime before summer.