Ruffle Dress completed and came out a tunic

Look at Friday's post for the inspiration dress. Although its designer - Jessica at Me Sew Crazy - claimed it was a 10 minute dress - I think that was meant for people who had mad sewing skills. I'm not one of those. I'm a very new beginner. So my first attempt at creating this dress was a big fat fail. I spent last night redoing the dress using double fold bias tape on the neck and arm hems and adding a polka dot sash. The only problem was that I cut the original dress over three months ago and my darling girl has grown a bit since then so it was now a Ruffle Tunic instead of a Ruffle Dress. 

Please excuse the pictures - I'm kind of inbetween cameras and I'm currently using my iPod camera.

I looked at one of Lane's current Gap dresses for ideas on how to finish the neck and arm hems.

I also liked how the back closure was finished.

So I took my dress - and laid the Gap dress over it to trace the shape

I then added double fold bias tape on the edges

This was the original finished neck - you can see why it looked so bad

Arm hole finished with bias tape

For me - the key to attaching bias tape is lots and lots of pins and patience

I then decided to use my WALKING FOOT that I got for Christmas to sew up the sides. The walking foot makes it so both sides feed the fabric at the same time. It really works! I loved using it on the knit fabric!

Finished product

Whew - such a relief to finish that one! It turned out to be a 2 hour dress for me once it was all said and done.   I'm not sure if it looks super homemade but oh well - she'll grow out of it before I would have a chance to fix it anyway!