The week my oldest daughter was turning 4, I pulled out some girl size patterns and asked her which one she would like for a birthday dress. She picked the one with pockets, of course! And when I let her choose some fabric, she gravitated instantly towards the purple floral – which did not surprise me. 🙂

This floral is one of my very favorite prints from the recent Bee Vintage line by Lori Holt for Riley Blake Designs. The good news is that it is one of their basics, which means that it will be available for a much longer period of time than usual, and they will keep it in stock!

This is a pretty standard 1950s girl dress, with a basic shirt-dress style made interesting by a yoke and those cute pockets. I cut down on the skirt width a bit, believe it or not. There were 4 entire widths of fabric in that tiny skirt!

Some lavender rickrack was the perfect edge for the contrast yoke, which I had the ideal fabric for in my stash. 

The little gathered pockets are the cutest. And she loves them so much, I will probably have to put pockets on all the dresses I make for her in the future!

I altered it to button the whole way down the back, and omitted the ties since this will be an everyday dress. Otherwise I followed the pattern. It was pretty quick and easy to put together.

The bodice pattern pieces were slashed and spread to make a bigger size, so this is actually a tad long-waisted for her. But that just means it will fit her longer, and she is growing so fast that is a definite plus!

The fun thing is that I have some of this fabric set aside for a 1950s house dress for me, so once I get around to sewing it, we will have matching dresses! I'll have to take more photos then. 

She was super pleased with her dress, and took interest in all the fittings and progress I made. She will be sewing her own as soon as she can, I'm sure. Meanwhile I can hardly believe she is 4 already!