Knock it Off - nest full of eggs

Another day, another knock off...this time by the brilliant Rachel from nest full of eggs.  She was another Project Run & Play season 5 fellow contestant, but I've been familiar with her amazing sewing skills from back when we were contributing to the Flickr group.  I'm so glad she chose this dress...I pinned it awhile ago, and have been looking forward to seeing it re-created.  I have to say...I'd pick Rachel's over theirs! 

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 Hello Elegance and Elephants readers, I'm Rachel and I blog at nest full of eggs. I am thrilled to be here! I'm a stay-at-home mumma of 3 children and I love to sew. This Knock it Off series is such a great idea and I'm so happy Heidi asked me to join in on the fun. I'd been wanting to sew my daughter a dress similar to one that I saw at an online boutique, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to give it a try.

 I knocked off the Gabriella Dress from Marie-Chantal Children, an online boutique based in London, the dress sells for $208. (Instead of brown puppy tooth fabric (or navy as is shown in the other color option for this dress), I used solid gray wool).

 I thought I could sew something very similar for my daughter and save a lot of money.

 Today I'm going to show you how to take 2 sewing patterns and tweak them to knock off the Gabriella Dress.

I used the Fairy Tale dress, a sewing pattern from Oliver+S. And to add pockets to the dress I adapted the pocket parts from Melly Sews Clean Slate Pants.

From the Fairy Tale dress pattern I followed View A, but I eliminated the crinoline.

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Instead of cap sleeves as shown on the Gabriella dress, I went with the tulip sleeves as shown in View A of the Fairy Tale dress.

And instead of a detachable store bought belt as shown on the Gabriella dress, I went with the tubular waistband (without the front bow) as shown in View A of the Fairy Tale dress.

 I adapted the pants pocket parts (from Melly Sews Clean Slate Pants) as I needed right angles in the corners of the skirt front.

 I then used those new patterns I made to add side pockets to the front skirt piece.

 Next, I added 3 box pleats to the front of the skirt (I kept it gathered in the back of the skirt as shown in the Fairy Tale Dress).

 I finished the pockets according to the pants pattern instructions. And I also added one silver shank button on one pocket, the button is non-functional, purely for decoration only.

 I had some charcoal gray wool leftover from a previous sewing project for the collar & waist details.

On the peter pan collar I added bias tape trim in the charcoal gray. To do this I made my own bias tape by using a 1 inch bias tape maker.

 One reason to do a knock off is to save money, for materials it cost me about $19 to make this dress, saving me about $189!

Those are my tips and tricks for sewing your own version of the Gabriella Dress, have fun knocking it off & saving lots of money :)

Thanks so much Heidi for having me!