Paradise Island Shift Dress:

I am so excited to share with you all! I've been sewing children's clothes for a while now, and very seldom get to do some selfish sewing. There's the occasional pair of undies, a nursing top, or a bathing suit, but this past week I got to take part as a tester for a pattern that I am utterly obsessed with! I LOVE me some Lilly Pulitzer, but as anyone who is familiar with the brand knows...not exactly easy on the wallet. 

 This past July, when we moved to Austin, I got to purchase my first REAL Lilly dress! It was only $200+....yeah...a bit insane! So needless to say, I'd been searching far and wide to try and find one of these beautiful shift dresses, when low and behold..someone tells me that there is a company getting ready to come out with one! Needless to say, I volunteered as tribute in an effort to get in on the testing of this pattern! A woman after my own heart! She even found Lilly inspired prints for hers! I swoooooned SO hard! I almost died when I got the e-mail asking to participate in the upcoming testing!! GAH!!

I immediately hopped in the car and headed to our local fabric stores in hopes of finding something that also had a sort of Lilly feel to it! I'm pretty satisfied with what I found!

Before I decided to cut into these beautiful fabrics, I figured it best if I did a "muslin" type run of it first. Needless to say, I'm very glad I did. At first, this pattern was a little above my skill set, so there was a bit of a learning curve. For one, I'd never worked with a zipper at all before, much less an invisible one. Youtube for the win! Same goes for the "understitching." 

As you can see, my first go around needed a few small adjustments, which she kindly made to the pattern version to better fit our bodies, including a smoothing out of the darts. This made a HUGE difference to the fit! (A great one!)

Overall, I am sooooo happy with the end results & ecstatic to have a beautiful Mommy & Me set for the girls! I will definitely be making a lot more of these in my future, and can't wait to have a wardrobe of them to wear on my upcoming cruise! Woo hoo!!

You too can get this amazing pattern for the beautiful Paradise Island Shift Dress at Bella Sunshine Designs! It is currently on sale through tomorrow! You can buy the women's, girls', or a bundle of both!! Absolutely worth it!!! This is by far my most favorite pattern ever, and I am super grateful to take part in testing it! Also, if you happen to be a Lilly lover like me, you'll definitely want to check out Bahama Hand Prints for some absolutely amazing inspired fabrics! I know where I'll be shopping next!!