Mimi Dress by Filles a Maman Blog Tour and GIVEAWAY

Hi there! I’m so excited to take part in this pattern tour and to share my version of the Mimi Dress/top by Filles à Maman.

Read to the end to enter the giveaway and get the discount code! 🙂

The Mimi is a really lovely design with many options. Top or dress, short or long sleeves, collar, fringe or none. You can make many variations with the same pattern. Love options! I decided for my first Mimi that I would make a short-sleeved dress with the collar.

Mel, from Filles à Maman, is a Quebec designer who names her patterns after the people that she loves. I think that’s sweet. Her designs have a slight European feel to them (or maybe it’s Quebecoise flair). Either way I really like them!

My 4-year-old Silly Bean was the lucky recipient of this dress. I bribed her with pearls for this photo shoot. (She had to give them back though).

This was my first time sewing a collar! Not as scary as I thought it would be, although I think I messed up the seam allowance a smidge, but that’s ok, I think it’s still cute. I added a lace overlay to the collar by simply cutting out an extra collar piece and basting it to one of the other collar pieces before continuing on with the tutorial.

I think I put the button too far over since you don’t see the keyhole detail so well. 🙁 Easy fix!

The pattern calls for making belt loops for the dress version but knowing my daughter I decided to omit them. The belt would have gotten separated from the dress and turned into either a cat toy or a leash for her toy dogs so for pictures I just tied a ribbon on.

I think I’m in love with the lace overlay on the collar.

The only other change I made was because of a mistake. I don’t know why but I completely misread the step about making the cuffs on the sleeve and thought I was supposed to sew down the edge of the cuff instead of basically just tacking it down in two places. My mistake completely! It doesn’t say to do that in the pattern. All that hassle for no reason! Ha. Next time I’ll know 🙂

My 4 year-old’s measurements for chest/waist were just under the size 3 and is the size 5 for height. I ended up making a size 4 with added length. It fits well now and I figured I could layer it over a long sleeve tee in the fall.

Pattern details:

Sizes included: 12months – 14 years
Illustrations showing the different options, colour photos for each step
Charts included: child size charts, finished length, yardage, pattern layout
The cut lines on the pattern pieces are in different colours for each size as well as different dashes for those of you who print in black and white (like me)
Pieces are easy to put together with little bullets and letters helping to line everything up!
Instructions are easy to understand.
Tips included for sewing with knits and for lengthening or shortening the pattern.

Overall I loved this pattern. It was so much easier than I thought it would be. I would say it is suitable for advanced beginners. If you have some knowledge of sewing with knits it will be fairly easy. I had planned to make one for Baby V as well, but I think I will wait for Fall as she already has a huge summer wardrobe what with all her hand-me-downs and all the recent pattern testing I’ve done.

ok..I’m done now

Fabric:
Dress: Pink Roses on Yellow Cotton Interlock from The Fabric Fairy
Collar: Kona cotton in pink and Raschel lace in ivory both from Fabric.com

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If you made it all the way to the end, yay you! Lucky readers have a chance to win 5 patterns by entering the Rafflecopter giveaway below. Or if you just can’t wait to find out if you win you can purchase the pattern now and get 20% off your pattern purchase in Filles à Maman’s Etsy shop with the code MIMITOUR20

Check out the rest of the blog tour line up below: