Piano Recital Dress for Kaitlyn

Kaitlyn's Recital Dress

What fun I had making this dress! Kaitlyn's mommy came to me early this year with several pieces of musical note fabric that she had purchased and a request for me to make a recital dress in the spring. Kaitlyn is in the first grade and would be in two recitals (at two different places). She started playing the piano a little more than a year ago and is in my Piano Club at school.

I knew immediately that I would only use two of the fabrics that she gave me and that I would add solid black as an accent. Kaitlyn's mommy wanted a full skirt for twirling and a big sash. As she talked I started sketching and the finished dress is almost exactly like the sketch. There was a beautiful piece of Venice lace in the bag with the fabrics that her mommy hoped that I would use. I added it to the first pair of sleeves and just felt that it was too much so I made a second set of sleeves and finished them with a bias binding.

The black border hem, sash, piping and the bias binding is a beautiful piece of cotton satin batiste from Farmhouse Fabrics. It is a lighter weight than the quilting cottons used in the dress so I doubled it everywhere. I purchased 1 1/2 yards and used every scrap! By the way, I wash and dry all cotton and silk fabrics that I use before cutting so that there will be no surprise shrinking when the garment is laundered.

The pattern I chose for the dress is Kari Mecca's Sweetheart dress. I love this pattern. The neckline is so lovely. The dress was finished with a purchased red satin bow that is attached with a jewelry pin back.

There will be pictures of Kaitlyn wearing the dress to share soon! As always, the photos are clickable to enlarge if you wish to see more detail. I really liked the way this came out and hope you do, too!