I really need to get back to sharing my makes and so today I’m showing off a new favourite kids pattern – the Waves and Wild (W&W) Too Wild Dress. It’s not a pattern I’ve seen shared very much, and I spotted it one day when buying a different W&W pattern. As a side note, if you sew for kids, do check out their website as there are so many hidden gems!
The pattern comes with lots of different options. It’s essentially a backless bodice with a gathered skirt, and you can choose different strap options and fastenings to make a lovely warm weather dress. My daughter is 3, and loves a swishy skirt and a bold print. She often picks out a quilting cotton in fabric shops due to the fun prints, so I’m always on the look out for a pattern that works well with these more structured fabrics. I figured that due to the gathers, the Too Wild Dress would fit that bill perfectly!
The pattern is great. It generally uses about a metre of fabric for a 3-4 sized dress. It’s a PDF which I printed at home as it’s absolutely tiny. It has small pattern pieces for the front and back bodices (I think maybe 4 pages of A4), and you simply cut the skirt and strap pieces based on measurements in the pattern, which are just rectangles. I really enjoy this type of pattern, both because there’s minimal sticking together of A4 pages, and it feels like you’re ‘drafting’ because some pieces are cut out with your ruler.
In terms of the pattern, the bodice is fully lined and the straps are enclosed between the two layers, the skirt is gathered and added to the main bodice and then elastic is added to the back to further gather the skirt. It gives such a lovely effect. For each of the dresses I’ve made, I’ve chosen a simple halter neck fastening, but there are more elaborate strap options including some with loops. I’ll have to try these in future.
So, onto the finished makes! The first version was made up in a cute cotton that we picked up at the Grid Fabrics open day in Glasgow. Grid Fabrics is an online only fabric shop based in Glasgow, and they’ve started to open up every once in a while to sell fabrics in person. We went along and as soon as we walked in my daughter insisted on getting this fun colourful print. It worked so well for the dress, she absolutely adores it.
The second was cut out on a whim, after I finished cutting out a dress for myself and had a decent sized remnant leftover (I was gifted the fabric in exchange for a blog post on the dress I made for myself, so I won’t mention the brand here). I’m not sure if it’ll get as much wear as it’s not super bright and colourful, but I’m hoping that the chance to match mummy will be an incentive to wear it.
The last two were made a little later from more quilting cotton we picked up at our local sewing studio Sew You Can. My daughter picked both. The rainbow fabric was Cloud 9 and so quite expensive, so we only bought 75cm and made the skirt less full and shorter than the pattern intends.
We had more of the Dashwood sunglasses and so that skirt is longer as I figure it’ll get more wear next year.
It’s not been the best of summers in the UK, so we haven’t managed to get much wear from them this year. I’m planning to add frills to the shorter skirts where possible so that she can wear them again next summer. We’ve also started to wear them with long-sleeve tops in the winter to maximise the wear.
We’ve had so many compliments on the dresses. If you’re looking for a relatively simple make, and a way to use up quilting cotton, I’d highly recommend the Too Wild Dress!
sew slow Sarah 
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