Oliver + S Roller Skate Dress

First up in my catch up posts is the Oliver+S Roller Skate dress I made for Piper to wear to library a week ago.  The Roller Skate pattern was released this spring and it was love at first sight (or so I thought, more on that later)!  There really isn't a lot to the dress, so it's quick and easy, my kind of pattern.  After the release immediately there were really cute versions showing up in the Oliver + S Flickr group like here, here, here, and here.  I couldn't wait to make one myself, or rather for Piper.  The library story time theme for the week was to be pond life.  I had the perfect fabric and the perfect pattern, I was ready to go.  This was my finished product:

For some reason I never took a mannequin shot.  It's a cute dress with fishes on it.  The fabric is Michael Miller Fishies with a green polka dot contrast on the yoke and is completely lined with a light blue broadcloth.  I struggled putting this dress together.  When I make another, I will do a few things differently.  First and foremost, I think it's best to finish the edges of the side and back seams of both the main fabric and lining before sewing the pieces together.  Wether you serge, or zig-zag or whatever, I think it will make it much easier later on.  I didn't like the finishing on my dress, I like the inside to look as nice as the outside and I just couldn't do that as well as I like in this case.  The dress is fully lined, which I like but to make the casing you just sew the front to the back.  That had it's own set of challenges.  I ended up with a pucker in the back, it wasn't really noticeable because of the elastic in the casing, but I knew it was there.  I think maybe using some Wonder Tape to hold the layers together would have helped and possibly eliminated the shifting that seemed to occur leading to the pucker I had.

It's an easy play dress.  Piper really liked it, I guess there were some little details that I was personally unhappy about.  I wanted to have a warm and fuzzy about this dress.  I had a hundred different ideas for ways to make it but was disappointed in this particular one.  I will try again, once I get a few more other pieces finished.  It would be a great dress for summer in a nice lightweight fabric.  It does sort of remind me of a few dresses I already have in Piper's closet from Hanna Anderson like this:

Just a few more shots of Piper modeling her dress: