About a week and a half ago I sat down to sift through my patterns and start planning Madelyn's Easter dress.  Holiday's always sneak up on me, so I wanted to be well prepared and start on her dress soon.  None of the patterns I own were really jumping out at me for an Easter dress (except Harper, but I used that last year for Easter!) so I took a break and was going to search around for a new pattern to pick up. No joke, I logged onto Facebook and saw there was a tester call out for a gorgeous new dress in the works from Made for Mermaids! It was EXACTLY what I was looking for in an Easter dress pattern!  I signed up and crossed my fingers and toes that I would be chosen!

Thankfully, I was picked to join in on the test and immediately got to work.  I made a trip the next morning to Hobby Lobby to grab some fabrics for the dress, because despite my over-flowing fabric closet, I truly did not have anything that would work for this dress in my stash!  (it calls for about 2-3 yards of cotton woven and I do not have much of that in my stash!)  I picked up several fabric combinations (and a bunch of notions!), and settled on this stripe and floral combination for my first go.  I also picked up this beautiful pink floral I will make up for her actual Easter dress!

For the longest time I only worked with knit fabric, and I've gotten used to the more "forgiving" nature of knits.  If knit pieces aren't cut precise, its much easier to fudge it with knits because you can stretch them a bit.  I had forgotten how time consuming woven projects are, but I sure do love the crispness of a perfectly finished woven piece!  The details on this dress are stunning: from the princess seams, to the bias ties and plackets on the sleeves, to the perfectly twirly gathered circle skirt!

If you are in the market for a new Easter Dress pattern or just a beautiful everyday dress, go get yourself a copy of the Sutton Dress and top pattern while its on sale (for $7 instead of $9 through 3/5 only!!)

Please note that this post contains links.  Some of these may be "affiliate links" which means that if you decide to make a purchase I get paid a tiny portion of whatever is purchased, but at no additional cost to you.  Affiliate payments go directly to my fabric fund to continue the cycle of sewing up or testing more patterns so I can share the love with you!