Every Occasion Little Bow Pleat

Many months ago I had the pleasure of testing a few of the Blank Slate Patterns (affiliate link) first releases.  I was a busy busy mother of a little baby then (as opposed to the mother of a toddler with TONS of free time, yeah right) and didn't get a chance to blog about the results.  So over the next few weeks I thought I'd do a few posts about the amazing patterns available from Melissa through Blank Slate Patterns.

First up is the Little Bow Pleat Dress.  Big bows are all the rage on little girl dresses and this does not disappoint.  The pattern testing version I made originally used the big bow pattern pieces and I love how it turned out.  However, the other day I was thinking about making a St Patrick's Day dress for Bean and I decided to make another Little Bow Pleat Dress with a minor twist.

 

In order to make the dress wearable for every occasion, I did the bow a bit different this time.  I made two button holes in the front edges of the pleat so I can string any ribbon through to change up the look of the dress.  To be clear, the holes just go through the pleat layer and not through the whole dress front.

I got the idea from a skirt that Simple Simon & Co did a while ago called the Any Occasion Skirt where they strung different ribbons through holes at the bottom of a skirt to match the day's look.  Cute right?

I of course had to make the dress in this year's Pantone color of the year.  I was very excited when they announced it would be emerald.  Green is my absolute favorite color and I know it'll get a lot of mileage this year, hehe.

I also made the St. Patrick's day shamrock ribbon since I didn't have one that would work in my stash.  I made a shamrock design and then printed it out onto iron on transfer paper.  Then I transferred the pattern onto some white grosgrain ribbon I had.  I think it turned out great!

Yes, Bean is standing on her Peter Rabbit book.  She's also eating an apple.  I'll do anything these days to try to get her to stand still long enough for a picture, hehe.

Here she's only pausing long enough to sign "more" so I'll give her more apple slices.

I think the shape of the Little Bow Pleat dress is adorable.  It's roomy and comfy, but has a nice finished collar and sleeves so it can be used to dress up or down.  By adding the button holes in front, I added even more options. 

This one might be my favorite since I adore pink and green together.

And here is a different shade of green with a different type of bow.  It's more of a floppy double bow and looks really cute.

Of course don't forget about other holidays.  Above, I just used a piece of a red bias strip I had from another project to make a cute Christmasy bow.  This would be so fun for Christmas.

Lastly, when I ask Bean to smile she gets as close to the camera as she can and makes this face.

(I should mention that I have recently added an affiliate link for Blank Slate Patterns on my sidebar as well as in some of the links in this post, but I sewed everything I'll be posting about long before even considering it.  These are just great patterns that I truly stand by and I am excited about being an affiliate.)

As usual, linking up to: