The Daphne dress

In between the quilting and the vintage dresses and the obsessive pattern buying I’m quite often being art-directed by Little Miss Ooobop! for her next dressing up party outfit. Today was her friend’s birthday party, Scooby Doo was the theme and she wanted to be Daphne.

Daphne from Scooby Doo

Burda Style 10/2010 came in handy, and not for the first time, with a great kids pattern for a long T shirt. The original had a button placket and long sleeves which wasn’t an option for Daphne’s dress. Believe me, LMO does her homework good and proper. The only requested variation was that the dress had short sleeves in case it was sunny. She wasn’ t wrong, that daughter of mine… what a glorious sunny day we had today.

The fabric is a mauve stretch cotton jersey which we found in the first shop we went into! And at £3.99 a metre, a bit of a bargain too! The satin bias trim was from my favourite haberdasher stall in Shepherds Bush market for 40p a metre! No other notions. A v-neckline makes sure of that.

Daphne pose

To alter the pattern I simply cut the the body back and front on the fold, ignoring the placket shape. I lengthened by 4 inches and changed the neckline to a V-shape. And shortened the sleeves of course.

I used the trusty side-cutter to do a faux serge on the seams. Honestly it works like a treat! And I used a stretch stitch to finish the hems on the skirt and the sleeves. I have finished a v-neckline with stretch jersey once before, on my spotty top, and it was great to practice it once again. In fact I think I did a much better job this time!

LMO with missL

The hairband is quite literally a tube of the stretch jersey. A head measurement minus an inch. No elastic involved. I just relied on the stretch of the fabric and it was fine. I wasn’t going to get too bogged down with it as it was going to get ruined by orange hair spray in any case!

The neckscarf is half a metre of finest lime green polyester, seamed all round with a gap for turning! Actually I was lucky to be served half a metre. Apparently only regular customers get that deal!

The only tricky thing about this project was getting said daughter to pose. It’s getting harder and harder to get her to willingly and graciously pose. It normally involves hard cash but today we got off light with a double scoop ice-cream!

Daphne with ice cream

22 Replies to “The Daphne dress”

  1. Adorable!! And what a great racket she is on too – gets Mum to make her glorious things and then gets Mum to pay her to get a photo of it! hehehe. I wanna be a kid again!!

  2. That is so cute! Love it. 🙂

    (Maybe you need to start bargaining with her – she only gets new things made by you if she promises to pose in them until you’re happy with the photos. 😉

    1. Mmm… they are cunning, 8-year old girls. There’s always a reason why they can’t be photographed… rubbish hair; too busy; not in the mood…the list goes on!

  3. Your daughter is too cute to boot with the whole look- The dress, the hair and the hairband. LOL. I would have to agree with MrsC that Daphne has a great thing going on…Her mum takes a photo of this great memory, which I’m sure she would appreciate later on, and then gets bribed with a double scoop ice cream. I think it’s adorable, and I think you’re doing a great job. 🙂

    Plus Size Fashion
    EvesPlusSize.com

  4. This is an adorable interpretation of an iconic character (who would ever believe those two words would be used to describe Daphne from Scooby Doo?). The style is also completely appropriate for a girl your daughter’s age, and looks fresh and current. Too bad you couldn’t get her to order purple ice cream, in case she drips on the dress. Although, come to think of it, that kind of polyester is fairly indestructible … hope the party lives up to her anticipation!

    1. Thank you LinB. I rather fancy one of those dresses myself now. She said it was really comfy! The dress is cotton and the scarf polyester but a purple lolly would have been a great look all the same!! 🙂

  5. Pingback: The Daphne Dress
  6. When i first read the title of this post, I thought you’d made the Daphne dress for yourself, and I was like “YES! That’s so awesome!!” – buuut the daughter version is quite cute as well 🙂 Still… i really think you could pull it off! 😉

Leave a Reply to sewbusylizzy Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.