In a bout of procrastination, I made the Oliver + S Family Reunion Dress for my little niece. I used some of the indigo-dyed batiste from FineFabrics.com that was leftover from my circle skirt project.
I love the cute little sleeves and the button tab detail. I also learned how easy it is to turn a facing to the outside, which creates a nice band of fabric around the neck. Since the fabric resembles a light denim, I topstitched around the edges of this neck band, as is typically done around the waistbands of jeans.
The hem for this dress is created by stitching on a facing, and then it’s topstitched like crazy.
The back contains the best buttonholes I’ve ever made. Seriously. I watched in amazement as my machine stitched beautiful buttonhole after beautiful buttonhole.
This photo highlights the one design change I made to the pattern. The front and back are supposed to contain six pin tucks. I stitched my first one in backwards, which created a pleat instead of a tuck. Since this fabric shows every stab of the needle, I decided I’d just continue stitching them all backwards. I figure I’ll use needing to get the tucks right as an excuse to make this dress up again some time when procrastination peeks its head in again.
I was actually able to give this dress to my niece in person yesterday. I’m in Seattle right now visiting my brother and his family. This dress is a present for our mini-family reunion. And, since they’ll be jetting off to Michigan soon for a giant family reunion with my sister-in-law’s family, just maybe this little dress will get to participate in two family reunions this summer!
Sew Well 
Beautiful little dress. I love the jeans detailing with the topstitching.
Not too much beats a good buttonhole!
exquisite!!
So sweet!
So cute! And I bet she looks adorable wearing it. =)
so cute! Isn’t it so gratifying to sew kids stuff every now and then?
So adorable – beautifully made. I’m sure your niece will love it and will look beautiful in this dress.
What a great gift. Your niece is going to be one stylish little gal!
Oh its adorable! I bet she’ll look cute as a darn button (or buttonhole 😉
Oh, Amy, how adorable!
Very cute!!! I’ve been looking at Oliver + S patterns since I have started to melt a little towards sewing for children. LOL
So, so cute! I love this!
CUTE! I love the pintucks.
what a gorgeous dress, far more enticing to the eye than the o&s pattern pic imo, makes me want to sew one for my own niece, and maybe draft something similar me-size, so simple but chic looking!
It was a fun and easy make. The neck ended up being a bit wide, but I really liked how the rows of stitching gave definition to the skirt hem. I may think about adding several rows of topstitching the next time I make a full skirt.