Watermelon Dresses

Last summer I saw the cutest pin on pinterest that was a picture of a watermelon dress someone was selling on Etsy. I thought - huh, I could make that! But I just didn't get to it last summer (wonder why?), so I began looking for cute fabrics to make them for the girls this spring.



The original inspiration dress had a solid pink with a green polka dot for the trim. I didn't find anything like that, so I used solid green, and a tiny white dot on bright pink for the body of the dress. I used just under 1.5 yards of pink (I think) and 3/4 yard of green. I tried to cut the proportions similar to the body for the girls - so Ellie's trim is smaller and her ties are narrower than Samantha's. I did a basic pillowcase dress pattern.

I was lucky enough to find some bright pink bias tape that almost perfectly matched in my stash of vintage trims! I used scraps of black for the seeds - I just freehanded some ovals and cut them out of steam a seam and then ironed that on and cut the fabric out. Instead of zig zag stitching around each seed (each dress has 10 seeds), I sewed just inside the edge - I think it is fine if they fray a little.



After their candy corn dresses last fall, I decided to have these dresses tie on just one shoulder - so much easier to keep on! If I do the two ties again, I use bias tape from the edges, so that the ribbons/ties don't fall out as often.

Samantha loves her dress and wants to wear it whenever it is clean. She loves matching her baby sister. Reactions like that make mommy love sewing for her girls!