Today for my turn in the Riley Blake Designs Easter Parade spotlight, I'm showing you one of the main florals, which I chose to use as a toddler dress for my little girl. Green is such a good color for her!

There are a lot of adorable spring prints in this line and I LOVE the color palette, though of course right now most people are thinking about and sewing for the holidays! Still, this green and white is classic enough that it could work for Christmas with a cardigan and a red bow.

I tried out a size 2 1950s dress pattern for this one, and it turned out quite a generous size 2 – but since I'll probably keep it for spring, that's ok. 

I used a bit of a white RBD basic for the trim, and added little cherry buttons to the collar tabs. Isn't that floral just too lovely? It's certainly large enough scale that it could work for an adult garment too, if desired.

I commonly find that baby dress patterns are too wide in the shoulders, so from now on I'm going to automatically take a pinch out of the bodice width and see if that helps.

But this pattern, with its empire waist and twirly flared skirt, was different than a lot of the basic shirt-dress style 1950s girl patterns I have, so it was fun to try something new. Plus this uses a LOT less fabric than some of the gathered skirts do.

As always, I am amazed at how fast the small dresses work up. I know it will get a lot of wear this spring and summer. I have another smaller piece in the blue color way, which maybe by spring I'll make up as a coordinating dress for the new baby sister! But now after this fun floral break, maybe I can squeeze in a bit of holiday sewing yet…we'll see.