For Valentine’s Day, my husband and I decided to reprise our honeymoon trip and get the heck out of snowy icy Massachusetts for a week . Our itinerary was simple: spend some time with friends and family, go hiking, and spend a few days at the Happiest Place on Earth.
Since I am never one to pass up a theme, I decided that I needed a new dress for the occasion. I’d picked up this Michael Miller fabric (aptly named “Straight on ‘Till Morning“) last summer when I was at Gertie’s dressmaking retreat and had been holding on to it with the intent of making some sort of Disneyland-worthy dress.
I really wanted an iconic 50s style sundress, and after waffling a bit I settled on Simplicity 2880 (You can see a picture of the pattern envelope here). I swapped out the gored skirt for a gathered one — I gathered about 3 yards of fabric into the skirt so I’d be able to get a nice puffy 50s effect. Of course, since my suitcase was filled to the brim I ended up not bringing a petticoat, so I look a bit deflated here, but you get the idea. The other reason for the gathered skirt of course was because I was working with a border print.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have much border to work with, so I ended up facing the bottom hem so I didn’t have to lose any more length than necessary. I would have liked a larger blue border at the bottom of the skirt, but I couldn’t think of a great way to do that without a visible seam, plus I didn’t want to move Peter and the gang any further towards the waist since they get lost in the pleats enough as it is.
Of course, when I was checking the weather for our sunny California getaway it turned out that it was going to be more of a soggy California getaway, so I whipped up a super last-minute shrug in polar fleece (more details soon…) to winterize my outfits.
All in all, I was really happy with my dress, and I got lots of comments and compliments on it wearing it all day. And as I was finishing up taking these pictures, Peter Pan went running past and said “Nice dress!” so I think that’s a win.
Outfit Details
Blue hair flowers: Made by me
Blue confetti lucite earrings: Etsy
Blue fleece bolero: Made by me
Disneyland D brooch: Match Accessories
Peter Pan novelty border print dress: Made by me, Simplicty 2880
Blue cloth belt: Swiped from one of my vintage dresses
Opaque skintone tights: Capezio
Blue ankle-strap wedge sandals: Rocket Originals
The whole outfit is lovely! The fleece bolero a finishing touch – just discovered fleece as a lining for dresses toasty warm soft and nobody knows! Will look forward to your post on the jacket. Really brightened my day to read your post as its truly awful here (Cornwall UK) wet & bad winds! Many thanks!
A fleece-lined dress! That must really be something. I’ve definitely been tempted to make myself a quilted circle skirt in this lousy weather — but maybe a fleece underskirt would be the quick and easy way to go!
I usually only do the bodice part as the fleece skirt lining makes it difficult to walk unless wearing boots as the skirt drags on my nylons! I have often looked at doing a fleece underskirt but perhaps facing it with lining material of some sort but haven’t yet worked out how to “Quilt”them all together keeping it neat.
That print is really cute and the fact it is Peter Pan approved makes it even better. Really pretty dress altogether!
Jennie from theuglydame.blogspot.com