Overall straps: button and buttonhole placement

[kjh9835]

I don't have many baby/kids patterns but bought one yesterday for dd17's friend who has a little girl. I made her a dress today. I want to make the straps adjustable with two buttons or two buttonholes instead of sewing them in place. What goes where?

Buttonholes on the bodice and two buttons on the straps or the other way? Does it make any difference? Do I make the buttonholes horizontal?

Kathy

[MartySews2]

Kathy, I would make vertical buttonholes (one on each side) & add buttons on the strap so she can get more wear out of it. Occasionally, I will sew for my 3yr old niece, 12 yr old niece & for my cousins' grandchildren (about 9 of them). Those are the only children's clothing that I make.
Marty

[kjh9835]

Thank you Marty. I've not done alot of kids sewing except for dresses for the twins and my girls when they were little. I don't recall ever doing overall type straps, they had jumpers they wore over t-shirts/turtlenecks and the shoulder straps were sewn together. They were home and I could measure them if I needed.

This dress went together fairly easily although if I make another, I'll use the ruffler attachment and sew the ruffles on the skirt part of the dress before I sew the last side seam up. This pattern called for making the bsse skirt and then gathering the circles of ruffles up to fit the skirt. Not hard but time consuming. Makes more sense to me to leave the skirt part flat, sew the ruffles on then sew up the other side seam.

When I had it mostly done, dd17 said "its way too big". I've only seen the baby once and she is small for her age but I made the dress according to her weight. I ended up picking out the ruffles off the skirt at the side seams, taking it up 1/2" on each side then sewing the ruffles back on. Again, time consuming. It's not perfect but who's going to look underneath and complain? They have very few clothes/nice dresses and will be ecstatic when we give it to them. I made a quickie skirt last week that took about 15 mins and you'd have thought it was gold the way they ooohh'd and ahhhh'd over it.

Pics coming later today.

Kathy

[sewingmom]

Kathy, I used to buy an overall type of slide adjuster for the boys denim overalls. It came with a hammer on buttton and a slide adjuster in the package. I have also done the type that Marty discribed.

[bridesmom]

A co-worker just made a little dress for her DGD and instead of buttons on the straps, she did buttonholes on the dress, and you pull the strap through and knot it, it looks very cute.

[sewingmom]

I've made 2 like that and it worked out well.

[kjh9835]

This was last night. I have since removed the middle red ruffle and repositioned it. It only called for 4 ruffles and I put a red one on the bottom and it should have been a white one since the top ruffle is red and was already sewn onto the bodice. I caught that before I did the rest of them so I just made another red one and put it in the center.

It's now finished, I did two buttons on the straps about 2" apart. If they need moved, that's easy enough to do. I am also making a white print hat but its not done yet. When I did one, it nearly fit MY head so I knew it wouldn't fit the baby. I redid it and left out some of the panels and will try it on her before I complete it.

dress.jpg (16.26 KB) Viewed 9717 times

Kathy

[lendube]

That is adorable, Kathy!

[MartySews2]

Kathy, I love it. You did such a nice job & I know that the little girl will be thrilled. You are so giving & caring.
Marty

[bridesmom]

That's adorable, all those flounces!!