60s A Line dress size 10 tailored for a cuddly 9 year old
OK I chose this pattern from The Pattern Goddess on Ebay initially simply because my 9 year old step daughter doesn’t fit into shop bought school summer dresses without them reaching her ankles and looking very … wrong!
Tailoring this dress to fit was a breeze, and being as on a normal size 10 adult this would effectively be a mini, it reaches just below her knee.
here is the pattern over view
I am using the short sleeve for her school dresses, but for her birthday dress I chose to do the sleeveless version with a twist.
here is the completed UK school dress in seersucker gingham I got from Favorite Fabrics on Ebay
as you can see she loves it, however i feel it looks a little unfinished, so as soon as I receive the pan collar jumper blouse pattern from the states I will add a white pan collar to it. I am tempted to add 1/2″ white ribbon trim 1/4″ in on the sleeves too.
Ive added a pan collar now 
Will update later with pics.
Would American readers please remember that in the UK we use gingham for school summer dresses, and due to ‘guidelines’ a white collar with a little embroidery is basically the max. you can do before the school throws a woopsie tantrum.
On to the birthday dress!
I decided on a heavy duty heavy patterned linen for her dress, one because it was hard wearing but 2 because I had the material knocking about. I’m going to make her a pair of jeans out of the same material later. However, with heavy duty comes itchiness of seams, so I effectively made 2 dresses, one out of the linen + the black suiting material I used on this 6 gore skirt project plus an additional dress made out of soft white cotton. I used the interfacing still but ironed it onto the cotton underskirt, and basically seamed in the lining to the outside (seaming each one separately then sewing together in position)
I then used 1 1/2″ wide ribbon to further split the bodice from the skirt and made a square bow and sewed that on by hand.
I used the same ribbon as a interim hair band, although I will be making the hair band properly later.
I think she looks sweet and girly without looking too babyish or grown up (remembering this is an adult pattern)