This past week I pattern tested for Made for Mermaids for the first time. The pattern is the Noelle Dress and is part of their Dreamy Winter Collection. It is available to purchase TODAY and is on sale for $7 through 11/29! As you can see, it works perfectly for a holiday dress! I love the dress on the left with the red velvet.
However, when I went to order red velvet it was out of stock...so I'm still waiting to make something for Christmas. But that's okay, this pattern works really well as an informal dress or as a peplum blouse. We live in subtropical Charleston, so we have little opportunity to wear winter dresses.
I did the version of the dress without the peplum or pettiskirt. The fabric I used is a Made Whimsy 12 oz cotton/lycra knit from youmadesomething.com. In case you were wondering, the quality is amazing and affordable, and this lady ships fast!
I sewed up a size 1/2, which ended up being too big because I didn't realize my daughter had lost a 1/2 inch in her chest size, whoops! That's okay, my skinny Minnie will grow eventually. This pattern goes from a 1/2 all the way to a 14.
With a stiffer fabric, the collar will stand up more than it did here. You may want to interface the collar for a better stand. Make sure you use lightweight knit interfacing, though. The midweight one I tried didn't provide any stretch and made it impossible for me to get it around the neckline so I ripped it out and sewed the collar un-interfaced.
I love the drama of this skirt, and with the circle skirt it's so easy to achieve. You don't even have to hem your knit like I did, many of the testers didn't.